LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

Chap.^NCopyright i\o 

Shelf :.. lis. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



RELIGION 



A RATIONAL DEMAND 



. . . BY. . . 

Rev. G. J. Kirn, M. A., Ph. D. 
M 



G2T 



CLEVELAND, OHIO. 
PRESS OF THOMAS & MATTILL. 
J900. 






Library of Co* i 

Two Copies r^ 
NOV 20 1900 

Coayrignt untry 

SECOND COPY 
Delivered to 

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Copyrighted, 1900, 

BY 

REV. G. J. KIRN, M. A., Tu. D. 



PREFACE. 



Early in the author's life the question arose, 
whether religion may not possibly be accounted for 
by the individual's training, and the racial ex- 
perience may not have created man's religious 
demands, or whether Revelation did not create the 
demand in order to have something to satisfy. 
This question prompted him to research; and it 
served the purpose of thoroughly convincing him 
that the demands for religion lay deeper than any 
experience which man may have accumulated ; they 
lay in the very construction of human nature 
itself. 

If this little work succeeds in pointing out the 
fact that religion does not consist in a formal sub- 
mission to the demands of a temporal institution, 
but in the dynamic relation of the soul to its God, 
the author will consider himself richly repaid for 
his effort. (3) 



4 PREFACE. 

The author does not presume that he has com- 
pletely covered the great subject ; but simply pro- 
jects this scanty outline as an index finger to point 
the way toward the recognition of the immutable 
foundation for religion and its demands. 

No one will suppose that this work is offered a 
substitute for revelation, but that it simply aims to 
point out why a Revelation became necessary. 

If this little work succeeds in its attempt, the 
author will point out, in another volume, how the 
demands made by reason are met by Revelation. 

Flint, July 1900. 



CONTENTS. 

Introduction 

PART I. 

THE CONCEPTION OF GOD AND HIS RE- 
LATION TO THE WORLD. 

Rational Impulses 29 

The Struggle for Unity 40 

Insufficiency of Materialism 51 

Subjective Idealism Inadequate 68 

The Absolute as Infinite 79 

Intelligence of the Absolute 90 

Personality of the Absolute 103 

Necessary Attributes of the Absolute Person 112 

The Relation of the Absolute to Nature 123 

PART II. 

THE IDEA OF MAN AND HIS RELATION 
TO GOD. 

Man Essentially Spiritual 137 

Development a Law of His Being 148 

His Freedom >, 160 

Nature of His Development 174 

His True Dignity 185 

His Immortality 194 

Susceptibility of Pleasure and Pain 203 

The Condition of Blessedness 211 

The Way of Death 221 

Conclusion 228 

(5) 



INTRODUCTION. 



Man is constructed upon a certain plan. This is 
true of his body and is true of his soul. Man stands 
in relation to the world. This relation of man to 
the world is not one of abstract dualism, but one 
of organic unity. The world and the soul belong 
together. They together constitute the world of 
reality. If man did not find himself in the world, 
the world would have no value for him. The world 
is not a foreign something resisting every effort of 
man to comprehend it; but man stands over against 
it with the full assurance that it must yield all of 
its possession to him. 

While there is a world of reality that yields its 
possession, there must be a subject to which it is 
yielded. The world has the possessions to yield 
and the subject makes the conquest. This subject 
has an insatiable desire for the conquest, and a 
nature according to which that conquest must be 
made. This nature is not a result of its experience; 
nor is it a matter of its own choice. This plan pre- 
cedes both its experience and its choice. The 

7 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

agent must exist before it can act; and together 
with its existence goes the nature of its action. 

The subject knows that many things are brought 
to it from the outside world. These facts are em- 
pirical. They are contingent. As facts they exist; 
but as far as our knowledge is concerned they might 
easily have been otherwise, or not have been at all. 
We can think these things out of existence without 
doing violence to our nature. Many of us have 
been born upon American soiL We have seen the 
landscapes of no other country of the world; for not 
a moment during our waking life has contact, more 
or less conscious, with this country failed us; but 
we can very easily imagine a time when this beauti- 
ful continent was hid under the waters of the sea; 
or we can conceive a time when it will no longer be. 
The sun has been an object of experience ever since 
man has existed, and we believe that its beams have 
kissed the earth while it was being prepared to 
become a home for man. We can easily imagine a 
time when the sun will have exhausted its resources 
and have gone out in the blackness and darkness of 
night. Contingent facts are as they are; but they 
might have been different. The facts of our experi- 
ence may be as they are; but they may be changed. 
We may change our experience by changing the 



IN PRODUCTION. 9 

direction of our attention. We may change our 
experience by changing our relation to the outside 
world; but we cannot change our nature. There 
are elements in our nature that are universal. We 
cannot get away from nor greatly modify them. 
They are not result of experience, for they precede 
experience and make experience possible. They 
are universal, for it matters not to which quarter 
of experience we turn, these principles govern us. 
If our mental life acts at all it must act according 
to these principles. We cannot think of an object 
without implying space to contain it. When we 
think an object, we are compelled to think of it as 
related to some other object; and our nature com- 
pels us so to relate it to the coexistent objects, that 
it may find a sufficient explanation for itself. The 
objects of an experience must thus be brought to- 
gether into a unity. This is not a unity of classifi- 
cation, but a unity of relationship, a unity funda- 
mental to all the diversity of experience. 

Our nature demands that the whole world of 
experience be organized into a complete system. 
The data for such a system, not offered empirically, 
are furnished by our own nature. And this agent 
that so lays hold upon experiential facts and organ- 
izes them is what we term reason. 



IO INTRODUCTION. 

Reason is not active except when it has data to 
act upon; but, when the data are furnished, it acts 
with a nature that is characteristically its own. It 
cannot modify its own principles without ceasing to 
be itself. It does not enforce these arbitrarily, but 
goes forth with assurance that the demands of its 
nature are the principles of reality. It looks for its 
own natuie in the objective world, and does so with 
the fullest assurance of finding it. The principles 
of reason found in the objective world are not the 
result of impersonal forces, but are the expression 
of a person like itself. The unity of reason with 
this personal being, expressing himself in the 
rational principles of nature, is what we mean by 
religion. 

It may be objected that religion is a matter of 
faith and not of reason. While this is true let us 
not overlook the fact, that faith is every where the 
organ of reason; and this organ is employed in 
science no less than it is in the sphere of religion. 
Reason organizes knowledge; and in its efforts it 
assumes facts and principles upon the strength of 
the demand of that organism of knowledge. The 
idea of space does not enter the mind through the 
senses; but upon the condition of an external ob- 
ject, reason by virtue of its own insight supplies 



INTRODUCTION. 1 1 

the idea. In the act of perception, we have only 
sensation. Sensation alone is not knowledge. 
Sensation must be ascribed to some object as its 
source. It is reason that posits the thing. Reason 
projects its principles far beyond the data of its 
empirical experience, and has perfect confidence in 
them. Experience has never seen the center of the 
earth; and yet reason assumes its existence with 
the utmost confidence. No scientist has demon- 
strated the indestructability of matter, or the exist- 
ence of an atom. Reason assumes these and has 
confidence in them, because physical science would 
be unintelligible without these assumptions. A 
hypothesis is considered demonstrated when it fits 
in with other principles and explains all the facts 
for which it is assumed. Upon the preception of 
the facts of mental life reason assumes the existence 
of the soul, as the only rational explanation. So it 
becomes perfectl} clear that it accepts the basal 
principle of psychology, as well as of physics, upon 
the same authority. Reason accepts the idea of 
matter because it cannot account for certain facts 
of experience without it. It accepts the idea of 
life, because it cannot account for form in organism 
without it. The law of gravitation is not empiri- 
cally given; and yet reason demands it for the 



12 INTROCUCTION. 

proper explanation of facts and, upon its own 
authority, supplies it. 

The idea of God as the fundamental explanation 
of all things must be accepted upon the authority of 
reason, and no matter what element is thus added, 
it must always be left to reason to determine its 
value in the organism of knowledge. To deny the 
authority of reason means to commit intellectual 
suicide. 

It may be said that reason alone would never 
have detected the facts of a revelation by virtue of 
its own light. That is true. Yet must it act upon 
the credentials of such a Revelation. It is required 
to pass judgment upon the comparative value of 
Buddhism and Christianity, upon Romanism and 
Protestantism. If Revelation means anything, it 
means that facts and truths otherwise not in relation 
to reason are, by means of it, put into such a rela- 
tion. It must bring to reason for the incorporation 
into the organism of knowledge that which it 
reveals. 

Furthermore, a Revelation would not be a Revel- 
ation, nor would it be received as such, were it not 
for the fact that reason had declared it a necessity. 
It was only because reason had found a sad want in 
the organism of knowledge, which it was not able 



INTRODUCTION. 1 3 

to supply, that a Revelation became necessary. 
But reason reserves the right of expressing judg- 
ment upon the elements admitted into this system 
of thought; and judges their value according to its 
demand for them. A Revelation that meets no 
want would be valueless . If the demand for such 
a Revelation had no rational basis the Revelation 
itself would be purposeless. It is reason which 
discerns purpose. It is in organized human thought 
that the demand must appear. 

The question may arise, "Is not reason untrue 
in its claims ?' ' It is, of course, a mistake to sepa- 
rate mental functions as though the mind was itself 
divided. Mental life is a unity, and the life itself 
cannot be separated into parts; but for convenience 
sake, it is proper to speak of a variety of action even 
in a single agent. Perception meets the outside 
world, while reason is constructive. And in mental 
life, reason has absolute value. The senses err, and 
need a corrective. When in a moving train the 
whole landscape seems to move in the opposite direc- 
tion, the appearance to the senses must be corrected 
by reason. When looking at an object through 
defective glass, the observer sees the object dis- 
torted. For the senses the object is in every sense 
distorted, but reason puts the cause for the distor- 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

tion in the defective glass and not in the object. It 
does so because the distorted object does not fit into 
its system of knowledge. 

Reason is so constructed that its individual facts 
must be construed in the light of universal princi- 
ples; and these universal principles are extended 
into every form of mental life. Wherever there are 
objects, they must occupy space. Wherever there 
is succession, there must be the idea of time. 
Wherever there is an event, it must be connected 
with a cause. In other words, reason is so con- 
structed that every fact of consciousness real or 
imaginary, must be related to the whole sphere of 
knowledge, and be organized therewith. Sensations 
produced, and simply produced, would have no 
value for mental life. A few scattered sensations 
upon the sensorium would never stand for anything 
intelligible. No amount of food thrown into the 
alimentary canal would sustain the body of an 
organism, unless it were first digested and assimi- 
lated. In like manner the data of sense perception 
must be elaborated before they become facts of 
mental life. It would be inconsistent with truth, if 
I were to make the impression that there is no 
elaboration connected with the simplest fact of sense 
perception. 



INTRODUCTION. 1 5 

No being enters the mind. The mind is spiritual 
and has no spatial extension as such. The distin- 
guishing quality of mental life is activity. Sensa- 
tions are acts of this agent. These sensations are 
in the form of attributes. It is reason that assumes 
the thing to explain the attribute. We see not the 
sun, we are simply kissed by its rays; but we pos- 
tulate a thing to account for the rays. We know 
only action, but reason compels the assumption of 
an agent back of the action. Again, it is appar- 
ent that it is the nature of reason to assume all that 
is necessary for the complete organization of its 
experience. 

It is, therefore, the nature of reason in its 
assumptions to transcend the realm of experience. 
The different schools of philosophy do agree as to 
the fact of universal truth; yet they are greatly at 
variance as to their origin, and, consequently, as to 
their value. Empiricism says that all our knowl- 
edge is derived from experience. All the items of 
knowledge rest upon individual facts. By compar- 
ison and abstraction we arrive at the universal. 
Empiricism, however, is prevented by its own prin- 
ciple from having a sound logic. If there is no 
general principle to account for individual facts, 
even induction would not be possible. In our 



1 6 INTRODUCTION. 

thoughts we depend upon the principle that ' ' What 
is once tiue, is always true." That is the pinciple 
of science. The medical student does not dissect 
every body that he treats; he proceeds rather upon 
the assumption, that having once thoroughly become 
familiar with a human structure, he understands 
them all. What would there be to the intellectual 
life, if it were not in the possession of universals. 
The empiricist in winter could not cheer himself 
with the thought of spring; for he has no data to 
compute or infer one from. 

The scientist, having confidence in reason and 
in its universal principles, trusts in the universal 
principle that underlies the changing seasons; and 
thus is enabled to infer beyond the immediate data 
of experience. 

Individual facts can be proved only by bringing 
them under general principles. Empiricism could 
never prove a fact; it must take it upon the authority 
of observation only; because it denies the principle 
by which proof is to be made. Empiricism has an 
insuperable snag in the form of mathematics. It 
presents a whole body of facts and relations, which 
are not ascertained by experience. The truth of 
these relations are not limited by the reach of experi- 



INTRODUCTION. 1 7 

ence, but are extended into every sphere of possible 
knowledge. 

The universal principle of causation must also 
be recognized by the empiricist. It, even, cannot 
afford to give up this relation of the facts of human 
consciousness. If it were true that we are limited 
to our experience, then would we be confined to our 
sensations, and could not get beyond them. We 
know then only the states of our consciousness; 
and in the absence of the principle of causation, we 
dare not recognize for them an external determinant. 

The denial of this principle merges us in to Sub- 
jetcive Idealism; and this makes the individual 
mind alone responsible for its knowledge. Strict 
Empiricism is agnosticism. It deals with sensation 
and is debarred from all contact with reality. For 
it the only reality is its thoughts and imaginations. 
Empiricism, when analyzed, becomes repugnant to 
common-sense. Common-sense cannot look upon 
the world as a shadowy imagination; it is a real 
something. The relations we stand in to other 
things are not imaginary; they are dynamic. We 
come into forceful contact with actual forces. 

We are members of society. Even the empiricist 
must recognize the fact. And yet, how can he con- 
sistently do so ? He knows only his own sensations, 



1 8 INTRODUCTION. 

how can he refer them, except by an act of infer- 
ence, to beings similar to himself. This society is 
a universal, composed of individual members like 
the observer himself. But no conclusion like this 
can be arrived at on the principle of empiricism. 

With the exception of a few empiricists, that are 
decreasing in number, philosophers recognize uni- 
versal principles. 

This must become apparent to the observer, if 
he claims the power of inference at all. Inference 
can only be possible upon the basis of propositions 
that are fundamental. If one proposition is a 
branch that grows out of another; that last branch 
must spring from another; and that branch must 
spring from the trunk, which is itself supported by 
the root. Destroy the root and the whole tree falls. 
Propositions, in order to be true, must spring from 
others that are fundamental, which are taken up 
into mental life upon the strength of their own 
evidence. And to reason must the final appeal go. 
The whole body of mathematical truths is an exam- 
ple of such truth that rests entirely upon direct 
mental insight. The whole body of Geometry rests 
upon such axioms. 

Their axiomatic nature does not depend upon 
the fact that they rest upon some other. They rest 



INTRODUCTION. 1 9 

upon proof furnished by reason itself, to which these 
axioms reveal themselves as unsiversal and conse- 
quently self-evident. Either we must accept the 
proposition, "That the mind has an insight of its 
own," or let the whole structure of mathematics 
fall into a hopeless mass of ruin. 

The conclusion of the matter is, that we possess 
universal truths and that they are noted for their 
self -evidence; and they in connection with the other 
elements of knowledge are necessary. Empiricism 
can give us nothing universal. It is concerned only 
with individual facts. It can never account for the 
element of necessity in our experience. 

Reason is not a special faculty, it is the nature 
of mind itself. It is at the bottom of all mental 
activity. 

Reason contains what is absolutely essential to 
knowledge. Its elements are essential because they 
can not be removed from experience without wreck- 
ing the entire mental life. All the facts of this 
life are established into insoluble relations. 

The principle of personal identity makes possible 
the mental acts of perception, memory, imagination 
and comparison. Neither could it exercise these 
functions if it itself were not governed in its actions 
by the law of identity. 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

It is in the presence of a content that reason 
asserts itself in a function ; and it is in its function 
that it is able to know its nature. It keeps at 
work until the highest generalizations are reached 
in the form of the axioms of mathematics, and the 
fundamental laws of thought, ''Identity" and 
"Sufficient Reason." All intelligence points to end 
and purpose; and reason generalizes this in the 
form of design. 

The three great centers of rational convergence 
are the "world," 'self" and "God." 

Reason organizes the various sensations, and 
the organization becomes the outside world. It 
organizes the various facts of the life of conscious- 
ness into the conception of the soul. The world 
and the soul appear to take the sides of an irrecon- 
cilable dualism; but further observation shows so 
many points of interaction that they together point 
to a further principle, in which they themselves are 
but differences in an identity. That unifying prin • 
ciple is God. 

The authority of reason consists in the fact that 
its principles are the necessary presuppositions of 
science. For it muse be evident that if its claims 
be disallowed neither the outside world nor the soul 
can have any being for us; and thus our whole 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

mental life would have to be given up as sheer 
deception. 

If now the principles of reason must be accepted 
in order to have a mental life at all, then comes the 
question as to the extent of their authority, or the 
reach of their value in the sphere of activity which 
constitutes us moral and religious beings. 

The world is a system of relations. The ob- 
jective cannot be objective aside from the subjective; 
and the subjective cannot be subjective aside from 
the objective. The two sides stand in organic rela- 
tion. One element of a relationship is as essential 
for that relationship as the other, and must deter- 
mine that relationship by its own peculiar nature. 
The subject has the same claim to reality as the 
object; and as the object determines the activity of 
the subject, so, with equal right, has the subject an 
activity and determines the activity of the object. 
The objective world is a reality, and the mind must 
accept it as such. If the revelations of the outside 
world as made in consciousness are a true revela- 
tion of the outside world, then is the revelation of 
self as made in consciousness also a true revelation 
of its nature. We know the nature of reason by 
its action upon the contents of consciousness ; and 
the laws of its activity as thus brought to the notice 



22 INTRODUCTION. 

of consciousness. Shall we question the activity of 
reason any more than we do that of oxygen ? Is 
not the one as actual as the other ? Does the one in 
its activity determine the nature of the world while 
the other does not ? It would be an inconsistent 
philosophy to hold such a view. We accept the 
facts of the objective world because we cannot 
explain them away; they are self-evident facts and 
must be taken upon their own authority. If the 
mind acts at all, and consciousness would be a 
deception if it did not, it must have a nature. It is 
clear to consciousness that the mind has a nature; 
and that it acts, whenever excited to activity, accord- 
ing to that nature. 

All intelligence is essentially rational, from its 
first activity to the highest principles of science. 
The principles of reason are as necessary as is objec- 
tive reality. The one forces itself upon our recog- 
nition with the same force as does the other. 

We thus see that the principles revealed by 
reason are as real as the facts revealed in sensation. 
Religion is concerned with the three rational ideas, 
God, the world and the individual soul. Reason 
must consider God as the sufficient reason, or ground, 
for the world; and every part of the world to its 
most bumble part reveals God. The world, there- 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

fore, is only the medium for revealing God to 
human consciousness. God is a necessity of reason, 
incorporated into its system of reality. This very 
fact that reason is driven to the idea of God makes 
man a religious being; for it forces him to enter 
into relation to this being, whether the relation be 
right or otherwise. 

Reason unassisted by Revelation would not have 
arrived at the purest conception of these principles; 
neither would Revelation have had any power to 
force upon the world something which teason did 
not demand. It was this demand that caused 
the different ages of the world to make attempts 
to construct religious systems that it might be met. 
They failed to meet the demand; and men have 
refused to recognize them. A revelation had its basis 
in the fact that reason made its demand and was 
unable to meet it. Reason had to pass its verdict 
upon the inadequacy of all the old philosophical 
systems to satisfy such demands. Reason, having 
made the demand, must also declare its satisfaction 
with the provisions made to satisfy it; before it, 
the chief characteristic of the soul, can be assuaged. 
Reason has made the demand; it must also declare 
its satisfaction. Reason declares the moral relation 
of the soul to God, and this is its most categorical 



24 INTRODUCTION. 

utterance. As it declares the relation, it also 
expresses its satisfaction when that relation is pro- 
perly established. Reason is put in unrest when its 
moral and religious demands are not met. It is that 
reason that needs to be put to rest, and that can be 
done only when the relations, it categorically 
demands, are perfectly established. 

This reason, which leads us to such conclusions, 
is one with all the faculties of the soul. The soul 
is not a bundle of faculties that are joined together 
by some common bond; but the soul is essentially 
one, and the various faculties are but different lines 
of its activity. Reason is essentially present in 
them all. It is present in the simplest act of sensa- 
tion, when it joins it to some other sensation, and 
assumes a common bond for the sensations in the 
"thing itself." It is present in the feelings and 
emotions. It is present in all the soul's impulses 
and aspirations. It expresses itself in the goal 
toward which the impulses and aspirations tend. 
For this reason the race, even when it was most bar- 
barous, felt the need of being religious. 

The soul is constructed in such a manner, that 
in its intellectual nature it aims for the Absolute, 
and in his ethical no less. Religion has always been 
the natural outcome of the entire mental life; anc[ 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

no amount of effort on the part of men has ever been 
able to dethrone it permanently. 

We are now driven to the dilemma: either the 
fundamental assumptions of reason are correct, and 
are the constitutive principles of reality ; or man is 
constructed upon a lie, and all knowledge is an im- 
possibility. If reason can be trusted, then are we 
at home in the world of reality. If it cannot, then 
are we deceived and cannot correct the delusion 
simply because we cannot trust our faculties. 

Reason imposes its demands and compels their 
recognition. It so orders the elements of knowledge 
that they serve reason in the attainment of its own 
set ends. It brings with it its own punishment for 
want of fidelity to these demands, in the form of 
rational dissatisfaction in the presence of unrealized 
ideals and compunction of conscience. 

Scepticism questions everything and wrecks 
itself. The intellectual life, in order to be at all, 
must accept certain facts and data of consciousness. 
Even unbelief is idiotic unless there is a recognized 
foundation for it. Speculative thought made the 
grave mistake of demanding that all the original 
data of thought must be proven by logical processes. 
Mental life is possible only when it accepts all the 
facts of consciousness. None must be accepted that 



26 INTRODUCTION. 

are not thus actually given; and none must be inter- 
preted otherwise than consistent with themselves. 
Reason starts out with the assumption that the 
universe is comprehensible, and that we are able to 
comprehend it. It therefore recasts all sensations in 
such a way that they are comprehensible. Sensa- 
tions are not always comprehensible. The apparent 
moving of a landscape looked at from a moving 
train; the apparent movement of the sun around 
the earth are familiar examples : but we put behind 
these irrational sensations such realities that they 
fit into a system of rational knowledge. We read 
the scattered and distorted sensations in the glow of 
the highest rational light. The soul is thus a liv- 
ing growing organism. Reason is its life. Objec- 
tive reality furnishes it its nutriment. The life car- 
ries with it the ideal of its growth, and this is to 
realize self in its perfect unity with the Absolute 
Ground of all reality. 



PART L 

The Conception of God and 
His Relation to the World, 



RATIONAL IMPULSES. 



Reason is not a formal faculty in the sense that 
it acts independent of any content. On the con- 
trary it is called into action by a content given it to 
act upon. The objective world is related to the 
mind by its power to produce sensations; and by 
this established relation between the self and the 
external world reason is determined to activity; and 
in the action it reveals its nature. Only in its oper- 
ations does it reveal its principles. Reason has a 
nature of its own, and this nature it impresses upon 
all its contents, and this nature it expects to find in 
a completer, even in a universal, manifestation. 

Reason is spontaneous and seeks to build up a 
living organism. It goes into the outside world for 
the nutriment it subsists on. This nutriment gives 
it something to do; but what it does is determined 
by its own nature. The first impulse we no- 
tice is cognitive. Through the avenue of sensa- 
tion it is put into the possession of color, form, 
weight, taste, etc. It organizes these scattered sen- 
sensations into the unity of an object. It is impelled 

29 



30 KJ^UGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

by its own nature to do this. It finds this object 
an individual object, but it will not allow it to re- 
main such, it must be related to other objects. It 
must be related to other objects that are the sufficient 
ground for its existence. Reason will not rest short 
of such an ideal. The object may be an orange. 
The elements have come from some source. They 
have not originated from nothing, for it is an axiom 
of science, that no matter comes into existence, nor 
is it destroyed. It will find, and previous to exper- 
ience it expects to find, that all elements present in 
the orange can be accounted for. They are taken 
from a store of atoms scattered throughout nature in 
different shapes, forms and compositions. Reason 
still insists upon going further. An adequate cause 
must have put these elements together. And no 
matter what the hypothesis may be upon which this 
composition is explained, whether it be the principle 
of chemism, or vitalism, reason will not rest short 
of an explanation. It is thus driven from one point 
to another, finding no rest and satisfaction until it 
arrive at a cause that is itself not an event ; a cause 
which contains the ground of its own existence. 
This cause IyOtze calls, "The Absolute Matter of 
Fact." Reason may name it as it will, it is irre- 
sistably driven to this goal. The chemist is handed 



RATIONAL IMPULSES. 3 1 

a fragment of nature, he knows not yet by experi- 
ence what elements are found in that object, neither 
in what proportion these elements are combined. 
He does not stop and declare it unknowable; but 
believes that reason will find itself in that composi- 
tion, and is impelled from the beginning to seek itself 
in it. The geologist goes into the strata of rock; 
he may not detect any order in their arrangement 
at the first examination; and yet he goes into them 
with a perfect confidence that every stratum has its 
sufficient explanation, and relentlessly seeks until 
it discovers its own demands in the lifeless rocks. 
In every department of being there are vast domains 
yet unexplored by science; and in spite of the fact 
that these departments are as opaque as midnight, 
reason ventures into them with the irresistable 
belief, that they must become transparent to its 
own diligent efforts. It is not irrational to assert 
that belief precedes knowledge; and this belief is 
an irresistable stimulus to knowledge. Hegel's 
fudamental proposition was that "Thought is Be- 
ing." This means that the development of logic 
must be the development of being. Schopenhauer 
has corrected this view by saying that "Being is 
not only thought, but also will." Though it is not 
true that thought is being; yet it is a fundarnenta 



32 REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

axiom of science that all being is transparent to 
thought. 

Reason carries with it the germ of its own in- 
finity. It is true that it is bound to its own imme- 
diate content, and is bound by the limits of its own 
attainments; yet in its impulses, and in the con- 
scious reach of its possibilities, it contains the ele- 
ments of universality. Empiricism has never yet 
been able to account for this fact. Empiricism can- 
not expect, upon its own principles, that the events 
of the coming day will be like the events of its past 
experience. This it can do only upon the assump- 
tion, that what is once true will always be true. 
This principle is indeed verified by experience; but 
for scientific purposes, it must be projected beyond 
this experience. Empirisicm cannot account for its 
own ideals, nor itself become a stimulus to effort. 
This can result only from the fact that the universal 
is present in reason, and, though it may not yet 
have grasped the infinite reach of truth, is confident 
by virtue of its own nature that it is the goal of its 
struggle. 

The conception that reason compels man to 
form is of a being, though the cause of the universe ; 
yet is itself caused by nothing: but is the cause of 
its own existence. It necessarily exists. It is not 



RATIONAL IMPULSES. 33 

necessary in the sense of that it is the necessary 
consequence of some cause, or causes. It is not a 
necessary being because the outcome of given forces; 
but it is a necessity of his rational nature. The 
phenomenal world being given, reason demands an 
explanation, and is indifferent in what this explan- 
ation consists; only so, that it is sufficient to cover 
the facts. No matter how men aim to meet this 
fact it must be met. Man has always been and 
will always be metaphysical; even though he may 
refuse to acknowledge the fact. The moment man 
comes into the possession of a rational consciousness 
he becomes metaphysical. Whatever may be the 
hypothesis, or the theory with which he may account 
for this, this rational impulse can never be silenced. 
The only difference between the ordinary mind 
and the metaphysician is, that the former accepts 
an unreasoned satisfaction for reason, while the 
latter will accept only what is consistent with itself. 
Reason demands that the various principles, found 
to explain the various departments of nature, be 
themselves combined and organized in an organ- 
ism, whose ideal is reason itself. This is the first 
root in the idea of God. Man cannot know his ignor- 
ance, without having at the same time the idea of 
a more perfect knowledge. He cannot believe in 



34 REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

the intelligibility of all things, without being urged 
to the conception of a universal reason, a reason 
that reveals itself in every part of the universe. 
This conception, though of the nature of a uni- 
versal, is but an imperfect representation of it; for 
the finite is never able to grasp fully the infinite. 
We are, consequently, left to reason for the concep- 
tion; and as the data in its possession enlarges 
through experience, reason enlarges its conception 
to meet completely the facts it is called upon to 
explain. 

It has been said, that because the Infinite cannot 
be grasped in finite thought, it must, for that rea- 
son, be unknowable. It is true that finite com- 
prehension only is possible to the finite mind. Only 
within a narrow sphere do we discern sense quali- 
ties. When we aim to get beyond these, we are 
confronted by insurmountable obstacles. We can 
see sights and hear sounds only within limited dis- 
tances. There may be a multitude of qualities in 
objects that we are not in the least related to in 
any way. 

The foregoing argument is completely met in 
what follows. We are concious of the finiteness of 
our organs of sense; that their power of endurance 
as well as their degree of service is limited; that 



RATIONAL IMPULSES. 35 

there may be realms of contingent fact into 
which, on account of our finiteness, we are 
unable to penetrate: yet reason is conscious of 
its universality in the fact of its own conscious- 
ness, that not only all actual data, but all possible 
data of sense must come under its own principles. 
It is driven forward with the firm conviction, that, 
though there be a thousand worlds of phenomena, 
they must all fall into the principles of r eason, and 
be organized thereby into the world of experience. 
If we had a million times as many sensations as we 
now have, reason would still claim its authority to 
organize them all. 

The sensations that cause the reason to act do 
not necessarily spring from the outside world. They 
may also arise within us from subjective causes. 
We soon find out that we have not only objective 
impressions, but also subjective claims. The sub- 
ject has its instincts urging it to form certain rela- 
tions with these objects beyond itself. We have 
within us certain desires which we cannot eradicate 
from our nature without destroying that nature 
itself. We have love for kindred; we have love 
for knowledge ; we have ambition; we need sym- 
pathy. All these desires need their correlative 
object. There are desires and longings in us which 



36 RKLIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

these objects cannot satisfy. We know ourselves 
as dependent creatures. We find within us feelings 
of veneration, and a disposition to trust. These 
feelings are a perennial experience of man. Are 
these feelings to stand as a perpetual spur to some- 
thing that does not exist ? Reason answers most 
emphatically no! It will not rest in such purpose- 
less being, but believes instinctively that every 
instinct has its correlate. While we are thus con- 
scious of our dependence, we look for something 
that is independent, something that is worthy of 
being a support. Man full of reverence and awe 
canuot rest in the worship of that which is change- 
able and finite. He must have something that is 
unchangeable and infinite. 

Now in brief, the natural feelings and longings 
of our nature impels reason to form the conception 
of a being that is worthy of reverence and is able to 
support. This is the second root in the idea of God. 

Man is not only cognitive and emotional, but he 
is also moral. He knows himself as an agent, and 
is compelled to pass verdict upon the value of his 
acts. His moral nature meets him with an impera- 
tive, that is not conditional but categorical. He is 
conscientious, not because he has learned it; but he 
is so constitutionally. It is his duty to do right 



RATIONAL IMPUI<SKS. 37 

under any and all circumstances, not because it is 
so revealed to him, but because it is the demand of 
his whole rational nature. Utilitarianism may ac- 
count for objective morals; but it cannot account 
for morality itself. We may know that certain prac- 
tices do contribute to our prosperity and that certain 
others do not. We know that certain dispositions 
are conducive to well-being and that certain others 
are not. Utilitarianism can teach us these facts; 
but it cannot account for the categorical imperative. 
Prudence can tell us to do what will advance our 
happiness, and to avoid those things that tend to 
diminish it; but it can never account for the demand 
to do right, when there is no immediate promise of 
well-being, or when, as it often does, it demands a 
sacrifice of one's dearest interests and fondest incli- 
nations to do the right. Individuals may differ as 
to what may constitute the right or the wrong; but 
the practical reason demands that the right be done 
at all hazard, and that the wrong be avoided, no 
matter what its promise of gain. Kant called this 
moral sense ' ' The Categorical Imperative. ' 

This fact that we are moral beings causes reason 
to assume that we are members of a moral govern- 
ment; and that at the head of the government there 
be a moral governor: for what authority could a 



38 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

law have that was the law of nothing ? What force 
could these be in a command that came from no 
one, and was only self-conceived or imagined. 
Such a law would have no authority; and man 
would make himself a fool to submit to it. Reason 
in claiming moral authority, and in its efforts to 
make good its claims, points to a person who is the 
source and the authority for such a command. This 
forms the third root in the idea of God. 

Rational impulses aim for a unity of first princi- 
ples. It never rests in disorganized fragments, but 
organizes until it has the whole system of being 
flow from one principle. 

These impulses point the way toward the con- 
ception of God. Thus in human reason is contained 
capsulate the conception of the Infinite; although 
at no time does it receive there its perfect expres- 
sion. The acorn contains the pattern of the per- 
fected and mature oak tree; though in the homoge- 
neous substance of the germ there is neither root nor 
branch, neither trunk nor leaf nor bark. It carries 
with it the plan of the whole tree and every element, 
that it absorbs from the outside world, it deposits 
with reference to the perfected oak. Likewise rea- 
son may be limited in its expression; but it carries 
in it the conception of the Infinite and every element 



RATIONAL IMPULSES. 39 

added to its experience it deposits with perfect 
reference to this end. To become like the Infinite 
is its goal. Its aim is that it may itself embrace in 
its principles all reality. In view of the foregoing, 
reason must declare itself a miserable falsehood if 
it had not the Infinite as its own perfected self. 
Reason, over against the changeable phenomena, 
recognizes the necessity of the changeless one; 
and coming to the conception of God, it is com- 
pelled to recognize its own relation to him. It 
cannot escape the sense of personal responsibility. 

We shall hereafter notice the reason for believing 
the Absolute to be a person. Therefore suffice it 
here to say that the highest category of thought is 
personality; and reason, forced to put the various 
experiences of the individual together, feels impelled 
to think of this being in that category of person- 
ality. 

These are the natural yearnings of the soul. 
These are the promptings of the self, that will not 
yield to the silencing effort of human ingenuity, 
nor to the fine spun theories of skepticism. 

They are perennial with the race, and have been 
the prompters to the great achievements in science, 
art and civilization. These ideals of reason have 
ever moved ahead of human achievement, and 
religion is their converging point. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR UNITY. 



The mind is so constructed that it naturally 
refers actions to personal agents, though it may 
not be very positive what, or who, those agents are. 
The religious systems of barbaric minds betray this 
personification to a large extent. Men witness the 
phenomena of nature; and the actions there noticed 
they ascribed to personal sources. Men recognize 
personality in other beings like themselves, only by 
a process of inference, because these other creatures 
act as though they were personal. The infantile 
mind is prone to carry this impersonification to an 
unwarranted extent; and only by careful and critical 
observation is it able to rectify itself. For this very 
reason the early religions of the world were poly- 
theistic. Every special kind of activity must be 
referred to a special agent. They had not yet 
learned the lesson of efficient causation. Phe- 
nomena were caused by ghosts and ghostlike fancies 
of the mind. The sea to them was one thing, and 
the earth another; the mind and the heaven and the 
astrommical bodies were wholly different things; 

there was no relation between them. 

40 



THE STRUGGLE FOR UNITY. 41 

But in spite of these infantile interpretations of 
the phenomena of nature there was a constant 
yearning for a unitary being that could comprehend 
all the various phenomena of nature. Xenophanes, 
about 576 B. C, had already at that date formed 
the conception that plurality was incompatible with 
the purer conception of deity. "The best can only 
be one." His great mistake consisted in identify- 
ing this God with the world. This one being, he 
said, is infinite and unchangeable. That which 
these ancient scholars saw but through a glass 
darkly, modern science, with its improved contriv- 
ances for observation, has brought into a clearer 
light. Driven by this rational instinct for unity, it 
has succeeded in pointing out that the multitude of 
phenomena form a "Universe. ' 

It is not in the fact that there is efficient causa- 
tion that this unity has been made apparent, for 
every particular phenomenon has its particular 
cause; it is not in the fact that there is design in 
the world, that there must be a unitary principle; 
for even design is compatible with a variety of 
causes; but science has demonstrated an interaction 
between the different parts of the world. 

We are not here concerned about the full signi- 
ficance of the idea of interaction; nor are we here 



42 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

concerned about the significance of natural law or 
the implication of the idea of force. We are here 
simply concerned with the question, whether the 
subjective craving, the impulse of reason, has a 
correlate in the objective world. 

Sir Isaac Newton saw an apple fall, and con- 
ceived that there might be a relation between the 
power that caused the apple to fall and the pow- 
er that held the moon in position. It was after- 
ward proven that these powers were identical. Not 
only does it hold the objects to the earth, and the 
moon in its position ; but it also keeps the earth 
and the other planets of the solar system in their 
relation to the center of their system. It is univer- 
sally believed by scientists that that power is the 
same throughout the entire universe. The balance 
in man's hand weighs the most distant world by its 
gravic effect upon the orbits of the other worlds. 
The spectroscope has enabled men to spell out the 
elements that enter into the composition of the sun 
and the multitude of stars It has brought to their 
knowledge that the bodies, millions of miles distant, 
are composed of the same elements that constitute 
the earth and the objects around us. As science 
progresses our conception of the universe changes. 
Men have turned their attention to sets of phe- 



THE STRUGGLE FOR UNITY. 43 

nomena that seemed out of relation to the known 
world; but science has penetrated these opaque 
regions, and has made them transparent, and has 
pointed out their vital relationship to a system gov- 
erned by a unitary principle. 

Reason insists upon making its demands and 
upon enforcing its principles upon ever> T element 
of sensation. It would . be impossible to conceive 
Jupiter except as related to space, and thinking of 
the unity of that body except through the law of 
gravitation. It would be impossible to think of an 
event there except as related to a cause. In fact 
Jupiter with all his appurtenances needs a sufficient 
explanation. 

The most diverse elements in the world revealed 
to us are matter and mind. They are so diverse 
that the qualities of the one are apparently contra- 
dictory to the other. Plato discerned this fact and 
considered it a hopeless dualism, and believed it 
could not be reconciled without a tertium quid, that 
was neither spirit nor matter, but partook of the 
nature of both. Descartes met the same difficulty, 
but likewise saw the fact that the two interacted. 
Neither his " Occasionalism" nor the '^reestab- 
lished Harmony" of Leibnitz was able to remove 
this difficulty. But the fact of the interaction of 



44 REUGION A RATION AI, DEMAND. 

these two spheres of reality remains. Modern 
science looks with amazement upon the fact that 
physical actions conveyed to the finger tips are 
transformed into sensations, and expressed in terms 
of thought, and recognizes the fact that decisions 
of the mind are taken up by the complicated machin- 
ery of the nervous system and converted into force 
and physical motion. 

These are facts which stare us in the face; and 
they need to be accounted for. These are elements 
of nature and stand in the vital relationship of 
interaction. How can this interaction be accounted 
for ? We will pave the way for the answer by an 
illustration. The various parts of a machine inter- 
act and work together for a single result, because 
they are but parts in an embracing system, and 
that system is the machine. Physical science has 
made us familiar with the fact that the action of 
things depend upon their relation to other things. 
Oxygen will sustain life; it will support combus- 
tion ; and in combination with different elements it 
forms different compounds. Here we have a single 
agent differing its action according to its relation to 
other elements. Things can, therefore, not be con- 
sidered independent, but are what they are only in 
relation to other elements. A stone would have no 



THK STRUGGI^ FOR UNITY. 45 

weight except in relation to the earth which attracts 
it. Both the stone and the earth are members in 
the same system of gravitation. Gravic attraction 
does not stand disconnected; but its influence can 
again be converted into heat; and heat in turn can 
be transformed into motion. Thus the ultimate 
conclusion of science is that there must be a basal 
unity. This interaction is not an irregular one; 
but these relations are so uniform that an action in 
one part has a commensurate effect upon the other. 
The blacksmith controls the shape of an iron bar by 
the swing of the hammer. 

This interaction can be accounted for only by 
the assumption of a unitary principle, which posits 
these different elements and maintains them in their 
mutual relations. Things are not independent of 
one another. They are not what they are in them- 
selves, but only in their interaction with each other. 
The mind is not mind without something to know. 
The subject could not be subject without an object; 
and an object could not be object without a subject. 
The relationship that suggests itself to modern 
.scholarship is that of ''Organic Unity." Nature 
makes a variety of expressions and is active in a 
multiplicity of manifestations; but these manifesta- 



46 REUGION A RATION AI, DEMAND. 

tions stand in organic relation to a fundamental 
unity. 

In succeeding chapters we will endeavor to point 
out what the value of this basal unity is for religion. 
What concerns us here most particularly is that 
there is such a basal unity, and that nature gratifies, 
in this respect, our rational impulse. 

This unity is both transcendent and immanent. 
It is not transcendent in the sense that the parts are 
put together, and their sum is the unit. It is trans- 
cendent because the part depends upon the whole, 
and is determined by the nature of the whole. The 
principle is independent for it is self-existent. The 
part on the contrary depends upon it. This princi- 
ple is immanent for the individual parts are not self- 
sufficient, but are what they are in relation to other 
parts and to the whole. The whole is the sufficient 
reason for the part and never vice versa. They are 
moments in a system; and the system determines 
the existence and the relation of the individual 
parts. 

The facts of transcendence and immanence are 
best cleared up when we get the proper conception 
of vsubstance. Substance is not so much stuff out of 
which certain individual things are made. There 
is only one way to substance, and that is by ascer- 



the struggle for unity. 47 

taining what it does. The fundamental require, 
ment of the nature of a thing is that it completely 
accounts for certain actions. The individuals are 
not cut off from a certain lump and then related to 
each other. They are permeated by the same causal 
principle. The supreme cause is self existent and 
independent and in this sense it is transcendent. 
The individual parts are not independent sources of 
power, but are dynamic in their relation to one 
another only by being themselves made so by the 
self sufficient dynamic principle. 

This truth can be illustrated by an animal organ- 
ism. The parts of such an organism derive their 
power from forces engendered by means of chemical 
relations established within the system. The indi- 
viduals are energetic only because the supreme prin- 
ciple energizes through them. The individual thing 
is known by its action. It acts as cause and is an 
individual as it partakes of the nature of the ulti- 
mate cause. The idea of stuff must be displaced 
from modern thought by the idea of action. Whether 
this principle is free or necessitated, whether it gives 
expression to its entire nature, or whether there are 
possibilities yet unrealized, do not concern us here. 

The unity of being may leave us in the dark as 
to the proper conception of the individual. The 



48 RKUGION A RAYlONAt DEMAND. 

Infinite is not divided into individuals and after- 
wards united again into the universal. The indi- 
vidual is only a modification of the universal. The 
hand, the foot, the ear, and the eye are not created 
separately and afterwards put together. They 
spring from the homogeneous, and are only modifi- 
cations of that homogeneous. Thus the interac- 
tion can be accounted for only on the supposition 
that the individual interacting agents are only modi- 
fied expressions of the comprehensive Being, in 
whom they all live and move and have their being. 
We have not yet completed our conception of 
this first principle. We have only established its 
unity. But with its unity hangs together its abso- 
luteness. It does not divide its domain with other 
principles. There is no room for such. There is 
no rational evidence for another. It is absolute for 
it is underived, dependent upon no other ground. 
It is ultimate. Science or philosophy can never go 
back of it. 

The relation of the particular to the Infinite is 
clearly put by Prof. Edward Caird in the ''Evolu- 
tion of Religion". Vol. I. P. 109. He there 
states a general principle of knowledge. He says: 
"We always go upon certain general principles in 
our consciousness of particular objects, and if we 



THE STRUGGLE FOR UNITY. 49 

could not turn the light of consciousness upon these 
general principles, if we could not define the uni- 
versal we use, we could never come to know any- 
thing To know is simply to carry back 

the particular to the universal and finally to the 
highest universal through tvhich everything else is 
known." We have now found the Infinite in the 
highest universal, the general principle, that em- 
braces every particular. We must always view the 
finite in connection with the Infinite; We must 
always think of the parts beyond the part, and of 
the parts be}^ond that part, until we get to the whole 
that has no part beyond itself, that is not limited by 
anything else. That is the Absolute." 

I will again cite Prof. Edward Caird, "Evolu- 
tion of Religion," P. no. "Religion is only a 
higher form of that tendency which in science leads 
us to seek the universal beyond the particular, the 
one beyond the many. Thus in our first natural 
view of the world, we are apt to take it as a collec- 
tion of individual things and beings, each of which 
is centered in itself or has only accidental relations 
with the rest. But science in the strict sense does 
not begin until we realize that these supposed inde- 
pendent individuals are nothing apart from their 
relations to other objects from which we distinguish 



50 RBUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

them; that, therefore, their distinction and division 
from each other is relative, and that in order to see 
them as they are, we must regard them as parts of 
a whole, differences in a unity, particular manifesta- 
tions of a general principle, which is at once the 
source of their distinction and of their relation to 
each other." 



INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIALISM. 



The first effort made to solve the great problem 
of the origin of all things was materialistic. When 
men first began to study nature sufficiently to learn 
the fact of efficient causation, they supposed that all 
the natural forces were resident in matter. Thales, 
a Grecian philosopher, who lived about 585 B. C, 
believed that all things had their origin in matter. 
He did not conceive of the necessary distinction be- 
tween matter and spirit. Materialistic theories in 
some form or another were in vogue for some time, 
and they were supposed to explain all phenomena; 
but when men began to investigate phenomena bet- 
ter and began to weigh the theories more carefully 
they found them wanting. These materialistic 
theories have again and again been repeated under 
different forms. As a result of modern science, 
that has succeeded in tracing the law of cause and 
effect into so man y departments of our knowledge, 
materialism has revived in a more scientific form. 
Many phenomena that had formerly been attributed 
to supernatural agencies have been brought within 

5i 



52 RELIGION A RATION AI, DEMAND. 

reach of natural agents and are perfectly explicable 
thereby. 

Materialism has this in its favor that it is per- 
fectly simple. In this respect it answers the pur- 
pose of a perfect hypothesis. It also satisfies the 
rational demand for unity. It is its simplicity that 
has caused it to gain influence as a hypothesis. 
Science has disclosed the fact that laws do not exist 
aside from things but in them; and that force does 
not exist in voids, but in the objects themselves. 
It has discovered that life does not exist by itself 
but always in some particle of protoplasm. It has 
discovered that mental phenomena do take place in 
the complicated structure called the brain. Science 
has discovered that any state of a developing thing 
is accounted for by the state immediately preceding 
it. It says as yet it is impossible for the microscope 
to discern the motion of the brain required to make 
it a rational explanation of thought, but this is due 
to the imperfection of the instrument rather than 
to the imperfection of the materialistic theory. 

Materialism says that the heavenly bodies hold 
themselves in position by virtue of their gravic 
force, and, consequently, we need no other power or 
principle to account for the order of Heaven. The 
mysteries of chemism are explained by the atoms 



INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIALISM. 53 

and by their affinity for one another; consequently 
we do not need any spiritual power to account for 
these phenomena. It is true that we cannot yet 
see that chemism accounts for the complicated 
phenomena of life. 

Irving protoplasm has not been developed in the 
chemical laboratory; but science has been so suc- 
cessfull in driving from the skies so many spirits 
and spectres, and has found the efficient powers for 
those phenomena in matter itself, to such an extent, 
that it feels itself warranted, upon the strength of 
these discoveries, to project the conclusion that 
material forces will yet account for phenomena 
which they cannot as yet explain. Matter will some 
day, under the manipulation of a skillful chemist, 
be able to evolve the mysterious phenomena of life. 
He is not yet able to trace the molecular movements 
that take place in the brain as a condition of thought. 
Yet from the base line of what it has done the ven- 
ture is made to predict that under the carefully ad- 
justed microscope some day these motions will be 
discovered that will amply account for all phenom- 
ena of thought. The truth of materialism consists 
in its monistic conception, and in the fact that it 
recognizes no laws or powers to be real but those of 
things themselves, that forces do not exist in voids 



54 REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

but in things themselves. But it makes an egre- 
gious blunder when it excludes all spiritual elements 
and aims to find matter sufficient to account for all 
pheno tnena. There is a unity of principle demanded ; 
but it remains to be seen whether materialism has 
discovered the principle. 

Materialism starts out with a pronounced dual- 
ism, for even it must be conscious of matter. It 
starts out with consciousness and matter; and, after 
it has discovered matter, it makes it the sole princi- 
ple of all knowledge and being. The first great 
blunder materialism makes is that it holds conscious- 
ness inactive and that matter as given in conscious- 
ness is a self-sufficient entity. It is this blunder 
which proves destructive to the whole superstruc- 
ture. Our idea of matter is derived from experi- 
ence; but experience is impossible without a mind, 
a consciousness, to begin with. All action upon 
the senses is a result of motion, and materialism con- 
siders it motion ; but motion is not sensation. When 
one end of a log is scratched with a pin it sends a 
quiver through the whole log, but at the other end 
it is a quiver still. Passing through the log does 
not transform it into anything else. The log formed 
no idea of the pin nor of the play of molecules in 
itself. It requires a different substratum to convert 



INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIALISM. 55 

motion into sensation. The vibration of the ether 
acts upon the retina of the eye. This motion is 
conveyed through the optic nerve to the visual 
center in the brain; and there, in the dark cavern 
of the skull, this motion is transformed into the 
sensation of light. Molecular motion in the air 
strikes the tympanum of the ear and wanders 
through the labyrinthian canals into the auditory 
nerve and passes on to the center of the brain, with 
which it is connected, and is at last converted into 
the sensation of sound. These motions suddenly 
lose their characteristics as motions and are con- 
verted into light and sound. Science must account 
for the transformation. Is there a material sub- 
stratum to account for this transformation ? It has 
not yet been found. These sensations are not sen- 
sations absolutely, but are sensations in conscious- 
ness. In other words, they are the experiences of 
a consciousness. We know things by the sensations 
they produce in us. Height and sound and resistance 
are our experiences; and they are the experience to 
account for which we assume the thing. The thing 
is the hypothesis by which we account for sensa- 
tions. It is therefore not a fact that mentality is 
the outcome and flower of material forces: it is 
rather the fact that matter is in consciousness and 



56 RKlylGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

never out of it. Kant in his ' ' Critik of Pure Rea- 
son," says that mind and mental categories are the 
essential conditions of experience. Sensations are 
brought to the mind; they may have arisen from 
motion; but they are no longer expressed in terms 
of motion, but in terms of mentality. These are 
the terms of consciousness in which they appear. 
The idea of space is necssary for the conception of 
matter, for the reason that it is one of the chief 
characteristics of matter that it occupies space. It 
is, however, a fact that the idea of space is not 
derived through the senses, but is an intuition of 
the mind. The idea of space is a necessary one, for 
the reason it is a mental condition of perception. 
When you ask the materialist what he means by 
the qualities of matter, he will tell you that solidity 
is a quality of matter. You ask him what he means 
by solidity and he will reply that it is ability to 
occupy space. But space is a mental intuition. 
He will tell you that matter is impenetrable. You 
ask him what he means by the impenetrability of 
matter. He will answer that it is the power of a 
body to resist the occupancy of a portion of space 
while it occupies it. Again he translates a material 
quality into terms of mentality; for nowhere but in 
consciousness and from conscious efforts do we get 



INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIALISM. 57 

the idea of power, or force. So all the qualities of 
matter are activities of thought. Force, law, unity, 
multiplicity identity, difference, cause, effect and 
substance are all terms of mental life and are pre- 
suppositions of all material science. 

The materialist speaks of atoms as the constitu- 
ent part of matter. Out of these atoms and the 
forces couched in them he constructs very readily 
the multitude of worlds. But, what is the atom ? 
He says that atom has weight, that means that it 
stands in relation to gravitation. It has chemical 
affinity , that means that it stands in certain relation 
to other atoms. These are relations and only 
describe what these atoms do. The materialist can 
describe them only in terms of causality. Again, 
you asks him what he means by the atom, or what 
it itself is, and he will tell you that he never saw 
one. It is only a necessary assumption, a logical 
necessity to explain certain actions bj\ So we must 
conclude that the constituent parts of matter are of 
mental origin again. This does not prove that mat- 
ter is a delusion but that it is the action of the 
objective world and its product in consciousness. 

Furthermore, our idea of matter is not made up 
from single sensations. These sensations are as 
disconnected as light and sound, as touch and taste, 



58 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

and yet these qualities are united in a single idea. 
For only as they become united do they become 
objects of knowledge. Impressions are identified. 
Atoms acting one way are classified together. Con- 
stantly recurring actions of the same kind are put 
into the same category. But whence comes the idea 
of identity and difference ? It is a mental term and 
applied only as the mind detects relationship. And 
such relationships are the fundamental assumptions 
of the scientists. Without a discernment of these 
relations all experience would be an everchanging 
chase of phenomena; there would be no relation 
between the atoms themselves or between the atoms 
and the observer. Not only is there not science 
without mind, but there is no atom of matter with- 
out elements of mentality. To ask what matter is 
outside of consciousness is to ask a hopeless ques- 
tion, one that will never find a solution. We are 
familiar only with the contents of our consciousness. 
We deal with our ideas, our conceptions, in fact 
with our experiences. This is sufficient to indicate 
under what great misconceptions materialism carries 
on its vain boastings. As a conclusion to this part 
of the discussion I want to cite the words of Lotze, 
''Outlines of Metaphysics" by Ladd P. 112. "We 
come back to the view now taken for granted by 



INSUFFICIENCY OF MATFRIRIJSM. 59 

physics; namely, every volume filled up of matter 
consists of an infinite number of real beings, which 
in themselves have no extension, but which by 
means of their intellectual relations to one another 
prescribe places in space that are merely mathe- 
matical points; and these by means of the sum of 
all their reciprocal actions effectuate both extension 
in general and also the form, cohesion, and force of 
resistance that belongs to the extended whole." 

It thus appears that thought and intelligence 
enter into the very being of matter itself. Matter 
is not self-sufficient. It can have no existence 
aside from mind; it itself cannot account for 
thought which is the necessary condition for its 
existence. 

There are also phenomena which differ from 
those usually ascribed to matter. The difference is 
not so much quantitative as qualitative. If the 
differences were quantitative, an increased action of 
one class of phenomena might possibly cause them 
to pass over into another class. When we pass into 
the organic kingdom we come to a list of phenomena 
which gravic force and chemism do not, in fact can- 
not, account for. Materialism, however, says that 
science has succeeded in removing so many cobwebs 
from the sky and has reduced so many complex 



6o RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

phenomena to some simple principle, that some day, 
in the laboratory of the diligent scientist, chemism 
will account for life. Mechanical and chemical 
forces assert the same quality in the most minute 
particles of matter as they do in the greatest mass ; 
and the strength of the quality can be measured by 
the quantity of the mass. But quantitative changes 
do not account for qualitative. There is a difference 
between organized and unorganized matter; and this 
difference needs to be accounted for. The chemist 
may produce the chemical compounds similar to 
protoplasm ; but he cannot make it throb with life. 
The chemist may think that he understands the 
nature of the organic cell; but it is only the lifeless 
cell that he analyzes. The chemical and mechanical 
forces in nature have not yet been made to account 
for the cell. Whenever we meet a new set of phe- 
nomena we must enlarge our conception of the first 
principle sufficiently to account for it. To properly 
account for the living cell we need an activity not 
manifested in the inorganic world. After all the 
experiments of the biologists, their result do not 
contradict the principle, "Life only from the liv- 
ing." The living cell has an art of combining ele- 
ments into certain active forms, which no scientist 
pretends to have. Here is indeed a set of phe- 



INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIALISM. 6 1 

nomena that reason needs to account for before it 
can rest. 

Organic substances derhe their name from the 
fact they are organized into systems. An organism 
is a unitary system. Physical masses are produced 
by the addition of particle to particle. The addition 
does not change the nature, or quality, of ttie mass. 
A cubic foot of gas does not differ qualitatively from 
a cubic centimeter. A multiplication of the latter 
will produce the former. A stone is composed of 
matter added from the outside, and every particle 
is but a repetition of the other particles. This is 
not true in the case of an organism. In the volume 
of gas every part is as perfect as the whole ; in the 
stone every particle is as perfect as the mass. The 
gas might be divided into different quantities, and 
every quantity, no matter how small, still has every 
quality of the undivided volume. The parts of the 
stone have exactly the same nature as the undivided 
mass. It is vastly different with an organism. The 
organism is arranged with reference to a unity. 
The different parts are co-ordinated with reference 
to a certain end. The homogeneous mass in the 
cell becomes differentiated into a multiplicity of 
organs and functions. The cells continue to mul- 
tiply and to remultiply, but always with reference 



62 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

to a definite plan. The cells in a germ will divide 
and multiply to form the leaf and stem and root. 
There is no reason why force, if it were not directed, 
should not exhaust itself in one part of the plant 
alone and not in a harmonious development of all 
the parts ; but, of course, that would not mean 
organization but self-destruction, for all parts of 
the plant are necessary. There is no reason why 
force, if it were not directed, should stop the multi- 
plication of cells when a certain size is reached. 
Undirected force can not account for the fact that 
analogous parts of the same specie are always uni- 
form, and that they adhere to the same plan age 
after age. There is no reason in force alone, and it 
is force into which matter ultimately resolves itself 
according to the materialist, why a cat should have 
four paws, or why the human hand should have 
four fingers and one thumb. It must be apparent 
to any careful observer that the parts are always 
arranged with reference to a unity. The parts can- 
not be severed from the whole without destroying 
the unity. The whole gives value to the individual 
part; and the parts are absolutely purposeless with- 
out the unity of the whole. 

There is another point in connection with the 
organism that needs to be considered. It is that 



INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIALISM. 63 

the organism is self-sustained. It is not built up 
by an extraneous agent, but is built up from with- 
in. The original cell contains within it the plan of 
the whole organism. It absorbs nourishment from 
the outside world. It does not deposit it as the 
particles are deposited on the surface of the stone ; 
but the absorbed nourishment is transformed into 
the likeness of its own protoplasm. This trans- 
forming power is the chief characteristic of this 
organic chemist, who is able to convert dead matter 
into living tissue. When particles are added to the 
stone, the stone makes no stipulations as to how 
they should be deposited. It is otherwise with life. 
It does not allow matter to come in as it is, nor to 
be deposited in a lump, but it m«ist be deposited, 
after it is transformed according to the requirements 
of the whole organism. In the animal organism it 
deposits certain elements at a certain place and forms 
bone, certain others at another place and stretches 
a nerve fiber, and all this with reference to a single 
plan. The constructed organism is a perfect mech- 
anism; but the mechanic is immanent in the organ- 
ism itself. The organism injured and the whole 
organism reacts upon the injury and removes the 
difficulty. The whole organism was constructed 
by processes intelligent in every part. 



64 REUGION A RATION AX DEMAND. 

A new set of phenomena appears when we rise 
into the sphere of sensation and thought. The 
materialist says that motion can be converted into 
heat, and the amount of heat produced is equivalent 
to the amount of mechanical energy expended in its 
production. Motion can be converted into electri- 
city and elctricity reconverted into motion. The 
one is an equivalent of the other. The fact, how- 
ever, is that motion and heat and electricity are oHy 
different forms of one and the same thing. They 
are all estimated and expressed in terms of force. 
The external agent acts upon the nerve ends and 
puts the nerves into a certain state. This action is 
transmitted along the nerve fiber to its own peculiar 
center. The external agency is force. The tension 
of the nerves is force. But that force is suddenly 
translated into something that is not force. The 
nervous system is a closed circuit. Energy coming 
in through the sensory tracts is transmitted through 
the motor tracts into the outer world again. No 
energy is lost in sensation. The force in the nerv- 
ous system is not diminished by the fact of con- 
sciousness. But while the energy passes through 
the nervous system it is interpreted in terms of con- 
sciousness. Sensation is a new set of phenomena. 
These terms of force are expressed in terms of men- 



INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIALISM. 65 

tality. The qualities of matter could not account 
for the fact of life, and now it is staggered by an- 
other set of phenomena. These phenomena are not 
quantitatively but qualitatively diverse from those 
ordinarily manifested by matter. Sensations are 
not mere expression of force. There is no known 
material process by which the motion of ether is 
transformed into light, or the molecular motion of 
the air into sound. Something beside material 
motion must be assumed to account for these phe- 
nomena. 

Sensation is not perception. A variety of sensa- 
tions are united and joined into the unity of a percep- 
tion. I,ight and sound, touch and taste, are united 
in the perception of an organ. The different mo- 
tion giving rise to these different sensations go to 
different parts of the brain, as is proved by the later 
results of neurology. These different nerve centers 
are specific in their action; yet, nevertheless, the 
activity of the different nerve centers is combined 
into the unity of a single perception. The different 
sensations meet in the unity of consciousness. The 
different atoms of matter are united into the com- 
plex unity of an organism; the simple elements of 
sensation are united into the complex unity of a per- 
ception; and the individual objects of perception are 



66 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

united into the unity of a world. This unification is 
the result of a spiritual process. Divisibility is not 
incompatible with the nature of matter. A material 
mass may be divided indefinitely. The mind, on 
the contrary, is not at home in disjointed variety ; 
it must have unity, and, consequently, in the diver- 
sity of material and physical phenomena it is in 
constant and hopeful search for unity. Were it not 
for this unitary principle, all the phenomena of 
nature would be in a desultory and unconnected 
state of flux. A log may have a sound wave run 
through it; but the log is unconscious of the wave 
and preserves not the fact. The action is lost and 
no record is made of it. Without a unitary principle 
in man, the unity and the preservation of human 
experience could not be accounted for. 

Comparison is not the product of material but of 
immaterial action. Action in different cells of the 
brain is not brought into unity by the contiguity of 
the cells. They can only be accounted for by a 
relating mind. The contents of the different cells 
must be comprehended by a single principle before 
a comparison between the two can be made. A 
block of marble cannot be compared with a block of 
wood unless some unitary being comprehends both 
in the same act. Thus it must be apparent that 



INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIALISM. 67 

thought cannot be accounted for by the forces of 
mere matter, because matter itself is indifferent to 
the attributes of weight and quality and relation- 
ship. These qualities are present only to a single 
being that can bring different objects together into 
the unity of a single relationship. 

The same is true with memory. Memory is the 
comprehension in consciousness of a fact not now 
present to gather with the fact that it occurred in 
consciousness under different circumstances and in 
a different connection. It not only comprehends 
the two facts, but it also makes a comparison; and 
the present image is declared to be a facsimile of an 
image actually in consciousness under different rela- 
tions. A being able to hold both the previous 
experience and the mentally reproduced image of it, 
in one and the same act of comprehension, is neces- 
sary to explain this phenomena. 

Thus, for a variety of reasons, it becomes evident 
that material forces cannot account for all the phe- 
nomena of nature. The fact of this failure natur- 
ally drove philosophers into the opposite extreme to 
see whether they could not be explained by Subjec- 
tive Idealism. This question will be considered in 
the next chapter. 



SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM INADEQUATE. 



If materialism will not account for the phe- 
nomena of the world because it cannot account for 
itself, then perhaps subjective idealism will do it. 
Reason cannot rest in a dualism. It demands unity of 
principle. When Kant reacted upon sensationalism, 
he showed that mind had an activity of its own, and 
that it was the active mind that constructed the 
world of phenomena. He demonstrated that the 
unifying activity of consciousness, the ideals of 
space and time, and the categories of the under- 
standing are necessary conditions for the experience 
of a phenomenal world. It was the phenomenal 
world that alone could be known; for it only could 
be brought within the forms of mental life. The 
"Thing-in-itself," he said, could not be known. 
While he believed this "Thing-in-itself" to be a 
rational necessity; yet it can have no value for the 
mental life; because mental life can deal with phe- 
nomena only. This thing in itself is outside of its 
reach. 

This foreign "Thing-in-itself" was a thorn in 
68 



SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM INADEQUATE. 69 

the eyes of Fichte. He thought, if there was such 
a thing, it must be knowable. If it is not able to 
stand in relation to the thinking subject, we have 
no right to give it objective reality, then it is a 
creation of the subject itself. While materialism 
emphasized one principle of the dualism Subjective 
Idealism emphasized the other. Now, if the indi- 
vidual subject with its own activity alone can 
account for all the phenomena of the world, it is 
supreme and has no need of going further in search 
of the first principle. Atheism would be the 
natural result. 

It will not require much effort on our part to 
show that ' 'Subjective Idealism" is not adequate to 
account for all the facts of the world of experience. 
The thinking self carries within it the firm convic- 
tion that there are other individuals, which have an 
equal claim upon reality with himself, and that he 
stands in a social relation to them. This belief is 
so firmly rooted that we could as easily get away 
from ourselves as to get away from it. If these 
individuals were our own creation, regardless of 
objective fact, we might have them as we pleased, 
for nothing but the subject itself determines the 
conception. The fact is that the individuals differ 
from one another and even from the subject con- 



70 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

ceiving thein. This difference is often so great that 
there is an actual opposition between the conceiving 
subject and the conceived objective individuals. 
Something must determine the subject to conceive 
the object differently than its own interests would 
demand. 

It is also a fact that the individual subject 
believes itself capable of entering into communion 
with these other individuals. The subject expresses 
his thoughts to them; and they in turn express 
theirs to him. This consciousness of other indi- 
viduals and this fact of their communion with each 
other needs a rational explanation; and the onty 
explanation sufficient to account for it is the exist- 
ence of other individuals and the power of commun- 
ication with one another. 

Now there is a community of spirits ; and each 
spirit forms its own world; and it is through the 
objects of the outside world that this communion 
takes place. If the individual subject is the creator 
of his own world, it would only be a natural conse- 
quence that the worlds be as different as are the 
individuals creating them. Each world would be 
the self-determied state of the thinking subject; 
and it would be impossible to find any point of con- 
tact between them. In order that commuication 



SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM INADEQUATE. 7 1 

between individuals may be possible the individual 
must use symbols that are known to each other. 
The symbols cannot be individual imaginations; 
but they must have objective existence for all. 
The world of symbols must be a common world in 
which all the individuals live and move and have 
their being. 

It is evident that neither materialism nor Sub- 
jective Idealism meet the necessary conditions for 
being an adequate hypothesis for the explanation 
of all things. The one doing jutice to the material 
side of natural phenomena fails to account for their 
mental side and even fails to account for itself. 
Life, thought, will and conciousness cannot be 
accounted for by the one; and the objective, the 
common, world cannot be accounted for by the 
other. And these are facts and convictions which 
cannot be denied, or explained away. Both views 
have elements of truth in them. Matter, its forces 
and laws are facts; and science and philosophy must 
pay them due respect. Mental activity is also a 
fact. The individual spirit is an actual existence. 
As an existence it acts and has principles, or laws, 
for its own activity 

Were we to stop here we would be merged into 
a hopeless dualism, matter on the one side and mind 



72 REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

on the other. Bach side attempted to bring about 
a reconciliation by denying the other side, and failed 
in the attempt. Stern facts, undeniable, stared them 
in the face, and put their bold theories to shame. 

Matter we have found could not be the absolute 
principle ; for matter is only matter to a thinking 
consciousness. It is itself a result of mentality. 
Irresistibly we are driven to a principle that is able 
to comprehend both sets of phenomena and to bring 
them into an organic relationship. We must have 
a first principle that comprehends both and makes 
the two sets but different phases of itself. These 
two sets of phenomena are not independent. They 
do not stand by themselves alone. They interact. 
And this fact of their interaction has led philoso- 
phers to adopt the phrase, which is so suggestive, 
and so eminently descriptive of the relationship 
between them, "Organic Unity." An organism is 
accounted for by a single principle. That single 
principle builds up organs that are distinct from one 
another The hand is in one sense distinct from 
the foot, and the heart is distinct from the stomach ; 
and yet these distinct organs co-operate in the unity 
of the organism. They are necessary parts of the 
whole and each serves in the completeness of the 
unity. The whole must be in every part and the 



SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM INADEQUATE. 73 

parts must be in the whole. Unity is deeper than 
a mere classification of similars. Like parts must 
be dissimilar in order to be distinguishable; yet 
they must be the expression of the same principle 
in order to be identical. The parts are not merely 
component parts; they are parts related in the unity 
of a single end. The root and the stem and the 
leaf serve but one purpose. The parts are diversi- 
fied but they are all related in an organic unity. 
The parts are not thrown together like stones in a 
heap; they are not joined together mechanically by 
some external agency; they are the varied expres- 
sion of the one thing. The organism exists in its 
parts and the parts are different manifestations of 
the same whole. 

In like manner are the two sets of phenomena but 
different phases of one and the same thing. The 
subject is subject only with referencee to the object; 
and the object is object only with reference to a 
subject. These two elements are distinguished in 
consciousness; and yet in the unity of consciousness 
they are one. This comprehension of the particu- 
lars in a universal is called organic. Subject and 
object are not brought together mechanically as a 
camera is brought into the presence of the object to 
be photographed; but it is a unity in which neither 



74 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

is without the other. A mechanical relation is one 
established by casual contact, and is materialistic 
from beginning to end. A material object would 
require a material subject. An object to be photo- 
graphed would need a blank surface upon which the 
image could be stamped. A material object cannot 
interact with non-spatial, or spiritual, being This 
truth was discovered by Plato, and wa^ the great 
difficulty ivith the sensational theory. The sensa- 
tional theory views the objects of the external world 
as standing in relation to an organism, and the 
objects acting upon the nervous system of such an 
organism produce conscious states. The conscious 
states are known , but the objects producing them 
are unknown and unknowable. This theory put- 
ting the subject and object as material objects in 
indifferent contact is suicidal. It starts out with 
matter but is compelled to return and declare that 
matter in unknowable. Prof. Morris in "Kant's 
Critique of Pure Reason," p. 19, has well said: 
"The real objective truth of materialism is found 
not in the doctrine that calls itself materialism, but 
in Idealism." Matter is expressed in terms of men- 
tality. It is not outside of consciousness, but 
inside, that it is found. It is an object of thought 
and must be expressed in thought terms. There is 



SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM INADEQUATE. 75 

a living forceful spiritual relation between these 
terms in consciousness; for the reason, that self- 
consciousness and objective consciousness are pre- 
sented as intrinsically one. This organic unity is 
possible only by means of a universal principle 
active in both and comprehending them. 

The relation of subject and object is not a 
mechanico-sensible one, in which the members meet 
in an indifferent manner. The relation is one of 
activity. Even the materialist, who emphasizes 
the objective reality and wants to cull out the sub- 
jective as of little value, resolves matter into force, 
and thus concedes the spiritual basis of reality. 
Science explains phenomena in terms of causation. 
A phenomena is considered explained when it can 
be referred to some principle accounting for its 
existence; and science knows no other principle to 
explain the facts of the world by them than the 
principle of causation. Causation is activity, and 
activity is spiritual. Matter is inert, it moves only 
as it is moved. This moving force must be outside 
of itself. That which moves matter must be self- 
active and cannot be characterized by inertia, one of 
the chief qualities of matter. Consciousness cannot 
be accounted for except by an activity on the part 
of the subject and object in an energetic relation- 



76 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

ship. And this relationship points to a unitary- 
principle which establishes it. The object points 
to one set of phenomena, and the subject points to 
the other; but the two stand in such a relationship 
that one points to the other and either is what it is 
on account of the other ; and because they are thus 
intimately related they point to a principle higher 
than either, higher than either because the explana- 
tion of both, because the relationship between them 
is established by it. 

Consciousness without subject and object would 
be impossible. It needs a conscious subject and a 
conscious subject needs a conscious object; and the 
relationship of the two demands a fundamental sub- 
stratum for both, of which the two are but different 
phases of activity. The inner and the outer experi- 
ences are but the different organs of the one essen- 
tial being. This is the unitary being toward which 
reason points, and which reason demands as a satis- 
faction of itself. 

This is the conclusion of human intelligence 
pushed to its natural results ; and in that principle 
alone there is rest. Hither we must follow the 
directions of our reason to the Absolute and find 
rest, or we will abide in the disappointing embrace 



SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM INADEQUATE. 77 

of irrationality; for it is the fool who saith in his 
heart there is no God. 

We have now arrived at the idea of the abso- 
lute, the unitary principle in which the two 
sets of experience are held in an organic unity. 
We have found that this First Principle cannot 
be material; for the material cannot account for the 
spiritual phenomena. We have found that all mat- 
ter must be expressed in terms of mentality. All 
matter has in it from first to last spiritual elements. 
And this leads us to the firm conclusion that the 
fundamental being is spiritual. It is therefore not 
subjective Idealism but the "Absolute Spirit," that 
reason is compelled to assume. There is an inside 
and an outside world; but the two are but different 
expressions of the One. As we look into the differ- 
ent departments of nature we shall see what attri- 
butes must be assumed as present in this absolute 
unity to account for the diversity of phenomena. It 
would be infidelity to the scientific method to neg- 
lect any set of phenomena or to misinterpret them. 
The phenomena must be taken without addition or 
subtraction ; and the Absolute must be adequate to 
explain them all. 

The Absolute must be conceived as having the 
sufficient reason for his own being in itself. It can- 



78 RKIvIGION A RATIONAL DKMAND. 

not be matter; for matter is inert and an absolute 
material mass could never have developed into any- 
thing. It would have to remain unchanged for the 
reason that, it being the original datum, and being 
absolute, there was nothing outside of itself that 
could determine it to act. As the absolutely self- 
existent, it must be the absolutely self-active, and 
self- activity is always spiritual. 

In the succeeding chapters of the first book, we 
shall endeavor to show what must be the contents 
of our conception of the Absolute. All particulars 
must find their explanation in the universal; and 
the universal expresses its nature in the particulars. 
The nature of plant life is known only by the form 
which it constructs. The form is the revelation of 
the formative principle. Thus the Absolute finds 
way to the human intelligence through the various 
avenues of its revelations. In it all the differences 
are dissolved into an eternal unity. There is no 
causative principle aside from it. It, being the all 
in all, is responsible for the different parts of nature. 
They are its manifestations. It reveals itself in all 
but perfectly in none, for the reason that the whole 
can never be fully pictured in any part. The Abso- 
lute can never express its absoluteness in finite 
manifestations. 



THE ABSOLUTE AS INFINITE. 



Objections have been made to the knowability 
of the Absolute. It is said if the Absolute is abso- 
lute he must stand out of all relation to things, and 
consequently to the knowing subject. If it is out 
of relation to the knowing subject it must be un- 
knowable. There is nothing in the idea of the 
Absolute that prevents it from acting: as spirit it is 
pure activity, for a spirit is known only as activity. 
There is no reason why it should, in order to pre- 
serve its absoluteness, be severed from its own 
actions. 

We mean by absolute that which stands in no 
necessary relation to anything else. It is absolute 
because self-existent. 

It is just so when we touch upon the question of 
infinity. Infinite means unlimited by any other 
being. It has been objected that if the First Prin- 
ciple be infinite then it must be able to act in all 
directions; and the irrational would be just as 
necessary as its rational mode of procedure. As 
a spirit it acts. As an infinite spirit it has no 

79 



80 R3UGI0N A RATIONAL, DEMAND. 

restraints imposed from without; but, as an infinite 
spirit, it follows its own directions. A limitation 
in this direction would be a negation of its infinity. 
The popular view of God and the world has 
done much to throw a shadow upon the conception 
of His infinity. According to this view, God is a 
Deus ex Machina enthroned in some sphere beyond 
the reach of the finite. The world is an outside 
entity and as such it must limit God. How God 
and the world can exist together at the same time 
while mutually limiting one another is a question. 
Thinkers have aimed to solve it by bringing in the 
temporal relation and declaring it Absolute previous 
to creation, but since creation limited. This solu- 
tion is faulty because it rests upon the mistaken 
conception of dualism. God on the one hand and 
the world upon the other. Our previous discussion 
has led us to the conclusion that the "One" must 
comprehend all. The particular phenomena are 
only modifications of the fundamental unity. The 
true conception makes the tvorld the action of the 
absolute. The absolute is in all its actions. The 
agent and the action cannot be considered separate 
entities. The action is the only expression of the 
agent. Oxygen is not one thing, and affinity for 
hydrogen another thing; but it is oxygen only 



THK ABSOLUTE AS INFINITE. 8 1 

because it acts as it does; and it is through its ac- 
tion that it is itself known. The absolute is not to 
be distinguished from his creation, but is one with 
it. The nature of its identity we shall endeavor in 
the remainder of this chapter to show. 

It is characteristic of the finite spirit that while 
it recognizes itself as finite it is itself related to the 
infinite. It is that which lies beyond the finite to 
which the finite points. Finite being points to 
uncaused being. 

Prof. Caird, in his "Evolution of Religion" p. 
89, discusses the efforts made by Max Mueller and 
Herbert Spencer to prove the Infinite. Max Muel- 
ler takes the finite as the firm and established ele- 
ment of science and from that as a base line he 
projects his science into the beyond. He arrives 
at the Infinite by denying the finite. But for him 
the finite is limited by the Infinite. Thus he sets 
the Infinite over against the finite and it is thereby 
made itself a finite; for the finite limits the Infinite 
as truly as the Infinite limits the finite. Herbert 
Spencer made a similar mistake when he takes the 
Infinite as the presupposition of the finite, and 
arrives at the finite by the limitation of the Infinite. 
All particular phenomena or facts of knowledge are 
such simply because in them the Infinite is limited, 



82 RELIGION A RATION AI, DEMAND. 

It is unfortunate for these writers that they look 
upon the Absolute as a boundless extension from 
which the finite is cut off, and over against which 
the finite is placed. Such views can never reconcile 
the finite with the Infinite ; for as soon as the finite 
is cut from the Infinite, the Infinite itself becomes 
finite. The mechanico-sensible view of the universe 
brings with it necessarily this result: the subject is 
placed over against the object and the object over 
against the subject; the one limits the other. We 
have pointed out in our previous discussion that the 
subject and object are but two elements in one con- 
sciousness; and consciousness is not limited by either 
subject or object, but comprehends both. 

The universal bond which holds these elements 
in this relation is not limited by the inner world nor 
by the outer world, but is present in them both. 
The individual consciousness grasps the world and 
holds it in its own conception. The world for 
each individual consciousness is as it holds it in the 
unity of its own being. The highest category of 
human thought is personality. Although we have 
not pointed out the personality of the Absolute as 
yet; we will assume it at present for the argument's 
sake, with the promise of fully justifying the 
assumption in a succeeding chapter. The Absolute 



THK ABSOLUTE AS INFINITE. 83 

is the most real of all beings; for the reason that he 
is the most universal of all universals, the principle 
of all principles, the basal being itself. And be- 
cause he is the most real of all and the highest 
being known, he must be thought in the highest 
category known to men. 

This highest category is the unity of conscious- 
ness. Man knows the world only as the world is 
in him and as he comprehends it in the unity of his 
own consciousness. The world is our world only 
as we comprehend it. Two men may stand over 
against a certain flower and the one sees in it much 
more than the other. Two men, one an inventor, 
stand over against the invention, the one compre- 
hends much more perfectly the invention than does 
the other. Nature, at best, can only be imperfectly 
comprehended by a finite observer. There are parts 
which the finite observer can not reach. The abso- 
lute must be conceived otherwise. It has posited 
all finite existence. The plan of nature is its own 
conception. The material for the realization of the 
plan w T as not in existence but is posited by itself, 
according to the demand of the plan. It, as the 
basal reality, posits all existence and comprehends 
all in the unity of its own being. There is a great 
difference between the finite and the Infinite; the 



84 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

finite is confronted with limitations. Its ideals of 
knowledge exceed its possession. The world which 
it aspires to comprehend is greater than the world it 
comprehends. The world it controls is not so great 
as the world which it aspires to control. If the 
world of the finite comprehended all truth and was 
able to govern all reality then the finite itself would 
become infinite. The Absolute cannot be thought 
as subject to these limitations. 

Two kinds of beings exist, personal and imper- 
sonal. Personal beings have an independent activ- 
ity, but only within a limited range. The laws of 
nature cannot be changed even by a personal spirit. 
He can only put himself under them or refuse to do 
so. Kven the laws of thought cannot be tampered 
with. A man thinks, or he may refuse to think, 
but when he does think, he must do so in accord- 
ance with certain laws. These laws are laws of his 
being, but are not called into being by himself. 
The laws of man's moral nature are beyond the 
reach of his construction or modification. They are 
what they are, not because of the choice of the in- 
dividual, but because of the decision of the Abso- 
lute, which posits the whole system and gives to 
each element, used in its construction, the nature 
required for the execution of that plan. 



THK ABSOLUT^ AS INFINITE. 85 

Impersonal being cannot be said to ha\e any but 
dependent activity. They have no volition, nor 
have they any power to determine except as they 
are determined. They are what they are because 
determined to be such by their relations to their 
antecedents and their co-existences. It would not 
be improper to say that impersonal existences are 
but modes of the Infinite. The free spirit alone 
has a sort of independence, but the limits of the 
freedom together with its possibility are in the 
Infinite. 

The dualistic conception which holds matter to 
be a sort of self-existence, which the creator finds 
and which renders him stubborn opposition, must 
be discarded ; because, as we have seen, the dualistic 
conception of matter and spirit is inconsistent with 
the science of knowledge and with its necessary 
relation to the Absolute. Reason will not rest in 
dualism. It must find a unitary principle. It has 
discovered that this principle is not matter, nor is it 
the conscious subject, but it is found in a principle 
that comprehends both. So that matter is not a 
something external and independent which the abso- 
lute must shape as best it can; matter is a creation 
of the absolute, or in other words, a mode of his 
manifestation. Matter is consequently not a limit 



86 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

set the absolute, but is its own activity which puts 
forth to the perfect realization of its plan. 

kaws of thought are not universals having real 
existence somewhere in space, but nowhere in par- 
ticular, laws having an extraneous potency to which 
the thinking subject must submit. On the contrary 
laws are always found in things, as Aristotle already 
pointed out. A law is only the abstraction from 
the activity of the thing. So that, in reality, only 
the thing and its action exists. The mind exists, 
and it acts according to its nature; and from its 
activity the laws are abstracted. 

The same is true with the laws of nature. 
They are often conceived as though they were laws 
which the Absolute found in existence, and to which 
he must conform, getting along with them as best 
he can. In creation, the Absolute does not allow 
the stubborn matter and the still more stubborn 
laws of nature to determine what that creation shall 
be. Now, from what we have learned, we know 
that the Absolute creates the individual things 
together with their mode of activity. Things are 
things because they act. There is no other criterion 
for thinghood but action. The nature of the thing 
is known by its action. These things interact 
according to their individual natures and each in- 



THE ABSOLUTE AS INFINITE. 87 

dividual thing adapts itself to the other in the inter- 
action. And all that is left is the thing and its 
mode of action and interaction; and natural law is 
only an abstraction from the actions of real agents. 
The Absolute in creating the thing also created a 
nature in the thing; for nothing can be without be- 
ing a definite something. These things act and 
interact, and these actions and interactions by 
abstraction become the laws of nature. They are 
posited by the Absolute in the thing itself. 

It is sometimes objected that the Absolute can- 
not be infinite because it acts according to certain 
principles of reason and morality. But even these 
laws are not imposed b3^ a superior being; but are 
the result of action according to his own nature. 
As a being he has a nature and his nature as well as 
his being are the explanation of their own existence. 
The laws of its being are not superimposed, but de- 
rived by abstraction from its actions. That he 
chooses to act in one way rather than in another is 
not a limitation by any thing outside of himself; 
and, consequntly, does not contradict the fact of his 
infinity. 

It has been shown that interaction cannot take 
place between things independent of one another. 
The interacting elements must be members of some 



88 RKUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

greater and more comprehensive whole. Particulars 
are referred to principles, and principles to more 
comprehensive principles ; and the ultimate resting 
place is the Absolute, which comprehends all other 
principles in a unity, most comprehensive. 

Lotze, after speaking of the possibility of change 
by causal action, expresses his final conclusion as 
follows (see ' 'Outlines of Metaphysic' ' — I^add, p. 
72): "The foregoing requirement can be met only 
by the assumption that all individual things are 
substantially; that is to say, they do not merely 
become combined by all manner of relations, each 
individual having previously been present as an 
independent existence; but from the very begin- 
ning onward they are only different modifications 
of one individual being, which we propose to desig- 
nate by the title of the Infinite." 

Thus reason, followed to its own legitimate ends, 
leads us to the conclusion that the basal reality is 
not subject to extraneous limitation; but it is the 
perfect explanation of all facts and all law. 

Before closing this chapter let us state a corol- 
lary for future application. The Infinite is the 
author of the whole plan. Things are created by 
it; and they have the nature demanded by the plan 
of the whole. They are not only already what the 



THE ABSOLUTE AS INFINITE. 89 

plan demands; but, as is shown in the organic 
world, they have the power to adapt themselves to 
the exigencies of the plan. So there is nothing to 
prevent the Absolute from carrying out the plan to 
its most glorious realization. This corollary will 
find special application when we come to the soul 
finding its complete satisfaction in true submission 
to the Absolute. 



THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE ABSOLUTE. 



When the chemist sees a particular activity be- 
tween some interacting atoms he changes his notion 
of the atoms in such a manner as to account for the 
particular mode of interaction. W^ have now arrived 
at a stage of the discussion where the question arises, 
''Whether there is intelligence in the universe or 
whether there is none?" 

It is the fundamental presupposition of all science 
that nature is intelligible. Only if it is, is science 
possible. If it is not then is science an impossibil- 
ity, and the entire scientific impulse is a deception. 
The question with us at this time is not whether 
every form serves a purpose, or whether some other 
forms would not serve the purpose better than those 
which we now discover. 

It is agreed on all hands that mathematics is a 
subjective science. That the principles and propo- 
sitions there laid down are not derived from experi- 
ence, but from the pure intelligence. They are 
universal and necessary. Man can never be made 
to question his own intelligence. He knows that 

90 



the intelligence of the absolute. 91 

he is not actuated by mechanical principles, but by 
intelligent purpose. The inventor knows that each 
part of the invention is not a result of mechanical 
force; but he recognizes himself as the framer; and 
he himself is governed, in the construction of each 
part, by the conception of the completed whole. 
This process he calls intellectual and not mechani- 
cal. A mechanical result flows necessarily from its 
cause. The invention may work upon intelligent 
principles, but only because intelligence was put 
into the cause. Mechanical forces work along the 
line of least resistance; and it is not known in ad- 
vance what the result will be. Every action is 
completely determined by its antecedent; so that it 
can never be other than it is. With intelligence it 
is vastly different. It works with means, perhaps 
as truly, as does the mechanism ; but in the use of 
those means it has the end in view: and it choses 
the means and employs them with reference to that 
end. Not only does reason work with an end in 
view and with reference to that end; but it insists 
in referring everything that bears such marks to 
agencies like itself. When it beholds a perfectly 
acting machine, though it may not know where, or 
by whom, the machine was created, and though it 
knows that all the material in that machine was 



92 r:exigion a ration m, demand. 

taken from nature ; yet will it refer that machine to 
a working intelligence. 

The archenlogist works into the crust of the 
earth and finds some stones cut in a perculiar man- 
ner; he says that mechanical forces would never 
shape them in such a manner; he finds some appear- 
ing as though they had been cut and others as if 
used for cutting purposes: he carrot very well be- 
lieve but that they were shaped by intelligence. 
He infers the nature of the cause from the marks 
of the effect. And, from those works of their 
hands, he infers the degree of intelligence possessed 
by those primitive men. But while man looks into 
himself for intelligence and interprets the works of 
men in that light, it is also a fact that he is 
prompted to look into nature with the expectation 
of finding himself and the principles of his intelli- 
gence there. 

It has been said that we think things only as 
they appear in consciousness, and never as they are 
outside of it. This is true. How a thing would 
act if it acted upon no one, or how it would appear if 
it appeared to no one, are insoluble questions. It 
is one of the revelations of epistemology, that some 
agent acts upon consciousness, and consciousness 
reacts according to its own nature; and conse- 



THE INTKIJvIGENCK OF THK ABSOLUTE. 93 

quently the intelligent subject will interpret these 
actions into intelligent terms. It is again true that 
consciousness is active in the act of conception, but 
it is never arbitrary. It reacts upon an external 
object only when forced to do so; and the nature of 
that object is not as it chooses to construct, but such 
as it is constrained to form. It is not free to think 
indifferently a leaf or a stone; it is not free to 
observe things in one form or in another: but in its 
ideas of objects it knows itself constrained by a 
reality beyond its control. It is often brought into 
bold conflict to the outer world; it is not free to 
think that conflict imaginary or otherwise; it may 
recognize the possibility of removing that diffi- 
culty: but it believes in the possibility of removing 
the difficulty only by modifying reality itself. The 
consciousness of the outside world is not a product 
of the free activity of consciousness; but is itself 
determined by the nature of an objective reality. 
But consoiousness goes out into reality with the 
perfect assurance that the demands of its conscious 
intelligence are perfectly met in reality. This we 
will endeavor to illustrate. 

The astronomer turns his telescope into the 
heavens and sees planets as they swing in their 



94 REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

orbits. At first he does not notice the regularity 
of the swing. 

There was something in the backward and for- 
ward motion which did not appeal to intelligence. 
Observations were more closely made, and it was 
discovered that the motions are uniform; and that 
the planets in the entire system are in a perfect 
balance; and then philosophers said, "If they do 
swing regularly then they must conform to certain 
mathematical formulas. ' ' A mathematical compu- 
tation was made; the orbits of those planets were 
constructed; their movements were again observed; 
and the orbits of the planets were discovered to 
agree perfectly with the mathematical requirements. 
Mathematics, as we have noticed, is a purely sub- 
jective science; and here we discover in reality laws 
and motions that can be expressed in such subjec- 
tive formulas. 

The mineralogist goes into the earth and finds 
crystals; these crystals have certain forms; and the 
same mineral always assumes the same form. The 
crystal may have five sides; and the five sides are 
noticed wherever the mineral appears. If he dis- 
covered a stone thus cut artificially with the sides 
and the angles all equal, he would certainly be im- 
pelled to refer the crystals to an intelligent cause. 



the intelligence; of the absolute. 95 

The subjective principles of mathematics are applied 
to the shaped mineral. The crystal is intelligible, 
its shape conforms to the formulas of intelligence. 
The mind finds itself and its intelligence there. 
But someone says, "If you make the mineral 
assume shapes which are intelligible and the min- 
eral itself assumes these shapes, then you make the 
mineral an intelligent thing. ' ' I am not contending 
that the mineral has a conscious intelligence; but 
that the mineral is built up by forces working under 
intelligent direction and working out intelligent 
results. 

The chemist goes into the laboratory and ob- 
serves the action of the elements of nature in their 
interaction with each other. He observes that oxy- 
gen normally unites wih hydrogen; and that one 
atom of the former always unites with two atoms of 
the latter. To select two out of a multiplicity of 
atoms is an intelligent act. It is not maintained 
that the atom is conscious of its choice; but the act 
itself comports perfectly with the requirements of 
intelligence. He observes that one atom of carbon 
unites with four atoms of hydrogen. It selects the 
four when a greater, or a less number, might have 
been selected. It is impossible to avoid the conclu- 
sion that the mineral kingdom is not a shapeless 



96 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

mass but an intelligent thing, not conscious intelli- 
gence, let me repeat, in the thing itself, but intelli- 
gence in the forces that put the thing into shape. 

The biologist makes an effort to get into the 
organized part of nature; and he expects to find 
the principles of his own intelligence there. He 
watches the process of organization; and cannot 
but find there that it works o'it intelligent results. 
The single cell of a cat, which forms the physical 
starting point of the animal, will develop one head, 
one spine, two eyes, two ears, four paws, a certain 
number of bones ; and these parts are repeated with 
perfect mathematical accuracy in every reproduction 
of the specie. The contents of the original cell was 
homogeneous. There ma} 7 or there may not have 
been a physical determination in that cell for all 
parts of the developed organism. It makes no 
difference to this discussion where we put the deter- 
mination. What we are most particularly interested 
in is the intelligence in the outcome. We find not 
only the application of mathematical formulas to 
the external form; but the whole internal mechan- 
ism is constructed according to the same principles. 
The bones are put together in such a manner that 
they act as perfect levers; the muscles and sinews 
are perfectly adapted to the bones; and the whole 



THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE ABSOLUTE. 97 

is arranged into a perfectly intelligible and intelli- 
gent system. 

In natural disposition and habit of life these 
animal organisms act better than they know. The 
simplest forms of life select those things that are 
adapted to the maintenance of the animal life; while 
they reject those not thus adapted. The result is 
an intelligent one. It may, again, be objected that 
it is by its instinct that it does so; and instinct is 
not intelligence. It makes the selection of means 
for the end of its maintenance. It is true the action 
is not one in which the intelligence of the animal is 
displayed. The animal acts better than it knows. 
The question with us is not so much how those 
actions are begotten as how they are to be inter- 
preted in the outcome. The outcome is so intelli- 
gent that the thoughtful observer is constrained to 
say with Prof. I^loydof Michigan University, "The 
universe itself lives; the universe itself thinks." 
(Phil, of History p 36.) 

How are these facts to be interpreted, or how 
are they to be accounted for ? There are onl y two 
ways of accounting for them. Mechanism or in- 
telligence. Before the fact of efficient causation 
was discovered, it was an easy matter to believe 
that some intelligent spirit had the sovereignity 



98 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

over the specific department of nature; but since 
that discovery the case is otherwise. Kvery natural 
event has its own natural antecedent; and the ante- 
cedent explains fully the event. The whole horizon 
has been swept, and no ghost or spirit has been 
found; consequently that explanation must be given 
up. And natural causation being a fact, we must 
look for the explanation of things there. 

Natural causation makes every event follow from 
its antecedent with a mechanical necessity; and 
science is more and more showing nature to be 
mechanical through and through. The old argu- 
ment for teleology rested upoa the belief that great 
chasms were found in nature, which must be bridged 
by some supernatural intervention; and because it 
appeared as though that intervention was intelligent, 
the intervening being must be intelligent. But 
science is more and more demonstrating that there 
are no breaks and no chasms; and consequently this 
intelligent being is not necessary. Now teleology 
according to the old view must be given up; 
mechanism must take its place Many a believer 
in theism has lamented this direction of the scien- 
tific spirit, as though it would leave all the universe 
to a heartless mechanism. Mechanism drives things 
from behind along the paths of least resistence; 



THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE ABSOLUTE. 99 

while intelligence leads the way. It is such an easy 
matter to believe that mechanism and teleology 
mutually exclude one another. If the universe is a 
mechanism it is driven to its results, and not led to 
them as demanded by intelligence. 

L,et us look at this argument a little more closely. 
Is it true that a mechanism excludes intelligence ? 
A locomotive is a perfect machine, and every part 
stands in perfect relation to every other part; and 
the relationship of the parts is established for a cer- 
tain end. Though the whole machine works upon 
mechanical principles and with a mechanical neces- 
sity, yet it is nevertheless true that the whole 
machine was planned by intelligence, and every part 
was suited to every other by an agent who had the 
end of the machine in view. 

It is true that nature does not act arbitrarily. 
She is as uniform as a machine ; certain actions are 
always the necessary outcome of certain antecedents: 
yet just as little as the mechanical oonstruction of a 
locomotive hinders it from having an intelligent 
origin, does the mechanical construction of nature 
exclude a contriving intelligence. Intelligence does 
not appear in the locomotive to bridge over certain 
defects in the mechanism; but intelligence is built 
into the whole mechanism. The machine is intelli- 

LcfC. 



IOO REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

gent, not because it itself thinks, but beacuse the 
inventor and the contriver thought and have em- 
bodied their thought in their invention. The work 
accomplished by the machine would have demanded 
intelligence, and a conscious intelligence upon the 
part of the agent, had it not already been put into 
the machine itself by the inventor. The fact that 
nature is a mechanism is no re: son why we should 
deny intelligence in her. 

If matter was the absolute principle then would 
matter be compelled to account for the mechanism; 
but we have discovered that matter is not self- 
sufficient. It is not a principle, it is only a phenom- 
enon. The Absolute is the fundamental principle. 
Nothing exists outside of it. There is no force but 
comes from it. If the order of the inorganic part 
of nature is intelligent, it does not diminish the 
fact to say that mechanism is the plan and 
order for its realization. If the outcome is com- 
pletely determined by its antecedents, then are 
the antecedents completely determined by their 
antecedents ; an d if the means have had no in- 
dependent choice, but were only involuntary in- 
struments, then the intelligence must be looked 
for in the forces determining them. Bach atom 
has a nature of its own; and no atom is responsible 



THE INTELLIGENCE OE THE ABSOLUTE. IOI 

for that nature, nor for its action when brought into 
contact with other atoms. The nature of the atom 
and its mode of interaction with others is entirely 
due to the Absolute; and it determines their posi- 
tion and their value in nature. When the mineral 
under certain conditions assumes an intelligent form 
it is not because the crystal thinks or has a con- 
sciousness of its own, but because the Absolute 
energizes in that realm in an intelligent manner. 
Not only the atoms, but also the laws, according to 
which they act, find their explanation in the 
Absolute. 

If the vegetable or animal organism takes forms 
which are intelligent, it is not to be supposed, for 
that reason, that the vegetable or the animal life 
have conscious thought; it is the Absolute that 
energizes in these forms. 

If nature is a mechanism intelligently ordered, 
it is not to be supposed that the mechanism can 
account for itself; for mechanism is itself a phenom- 
enon to be accounted for. It is itself an event, a fact 
and requires a sufficient explanation. If there is 
intelligence in the effect reason demands, for its own 
satisfaction, intelligence in the cause. 

If evolution be accepted as an explanation of 
the order of nature, then the antecedents must 



102 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

account for the subsequent; and the outcome trust 
be involved or lay already capsulate, in the begin- 
ning. 

Intelligence is the only thing that can account 
for the fact that the universe has an orderly arrange- 
ment, and that the human intelligence finds itself 
in her. Intelligence is the only explanation that 
covers the facts and finds none which it cannot 
cover; for that reason it has a perfect right to have 
its claims recognized. There may be instances in 
nature where we seem to detect no thought, no 
intelligence; but science has gratified the demands 
of reason in so many instances, that the scientist 
goes into these dark realms with the perfect confi- 
dence that some day they too will surrender their 
possessions to the gratification of the rational 
impulse. 



PERSONALITY OF THE ABSOLUTE. 



Even in spite of the fact that there is intelligence 
in nature, objections have been made to the idea of 
the personality of the ultimate and basal reality. 
A crude Pantheism considers this reality to be a 
sort of extended stuS tvhich divides and subdivides 
into the endless variety of natural phenomena; and 
that this indefinite homogeneous mass reaches con- 
sciousness in the outcome of its development. We 
have previously noticed that such a mass is repug- 
nant to our idea of unity; for reason will not rest in 
an endless diversity it must have unity. Such a 
mass of matter could never originate motion neither 
could it account for spiritual phenomena. This 
basal reality must account for matter and motion as 
well as for all the spiritual phenomena. 

Schopenhauer calls it Pure Will. This Pure 
Will is not connected with any intelligence. This 
would agree well with the idea of force, which the 
materialists consider to be the fundamental basis of 
reality, but Schopenhauer is conceding the spiritual 
origin of nature without any special reserve. A 
103 



I04 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

pure will unguided by intelligence is simply a blind 
force ; and a blind force is not the issue of person- 
ality. 

If blind force will satisfy the demands of reason 
in the explanation of all phenomena then there is 
no need of encumbering it with any more complica- 
tions. But when we come to think after this man- 
ner then are we confronted with the question, 
"How can a blind undirected force energize in an 
intelligent manner and bring about intelligent 
results." A pure will must of necessity act 
blindly; it can have no aim and can not be pur- 
posive. The only direction given to such a force 
must come from mechanical necessity; but then 
mechanical necessity is unaccounted for. Science 
is based upon the demand of a sufficient reason ; and 
causation is one of its principle elements. Causa- 
tion, in order to be clear to reason, must have a free 
origin; and for that reason science agrees with 
Schopenhauer that all things originate in "Will." 

The only information we have of will is in con- 
nection with intelligence; and unless there is a suffi- 
cient reason to demand it, the two should not be dis- 
sociated. All force must originate in will, but, 
according to Schopenhauer, intelligence is not 
associated with it. Intelligence is the last pro- 



THE PERSONALITY OF THE ABSOLUTE. I05 

duct of forces ; it is the highest point of their 
development. This intelligence appearing in man, 
however, looks back over the whole process and 
finds itself wherever the tracing of its lines is pos- 
sible, and upon Schopenhauer's hypothesis the 
question, How a force, without intelligent direction 
could bring about intelligent results remains un- 
solved. 

Hartman seeing the untenability of the ''Pure 
Will" hypothesis of Schopehauer, and yet disirous 
of avoiding the full concession to "Theism," gave 
this Absolute an unconscious intelligence. He 
recognizes with the scientific spirit of the age that 
force must have its origin in the will: and, on the 
other hand, he can not but notice that the world is 
replete with manifestations of intelligence. He 
cannot believe that the phenomena of nature can be 
explained satisfactorily without the idea of purpose, 
or final cause. This purpose, however, is uncon- 
sciously held; something like the matured plan of 
an organism is held by the life of that organism; 
and that it arrives at consciousness only in man. 

This whole question resolves itself into this dis- 
junctive, either intelligence is the necessary result 
of mechanical action, or it is the quality of the 
"Will" of Schopenhauer. If it is the former then 



106 RKLIGION A RATION AI. DEMAND. 

the mechanism is itself intelligent and requires in- 
telligence in its explanation. If there were no 
intelligence in the cause, and yet there would 
appear intelligence in the result, there would be a 
phenomenon, an event, without a cause; and that 
again would be repugnant to the demands of rea- 
son. After this due consideration, we are forced to 
the only conclusion that reality has its basis in a 
self-directing will; and a self- directing will is a 
person. 

Personality is the simplest explanation of nature; 
and unless the idea comes into serious conflict with 
itself, or proves inconsistent, it must be held. Per- 
sonality demands self-knowledge and self-direction. 
We call men persons because they can select a cer- 
tain end and put forth efforts to gain that end. We 
measure the strength of a man's intellect by the 
height of his purpose, and the complication of 
means necessary for the attainment of that purpose. 

Science looks to force for the explanation of 
things; and force points to its own originations in 
' 'Will." Force working out intelligent results 
must have intelligent direction. Intelligent direc- 
tion can only be thought in connection with a pre- 
conceived end, and held as the good of some action. 
These facts point so strongly toward personality 



THE PERSONALITY OF THE ABSOLUTE. I07 

that we must have very cogent reasons for denying 
it. It is said that the Absolute cannot be a person ; 
because consciousness always involves a distinction 
of subject and object. The Absolute can be noth- 
ing but simply subject, if the unity is to be pre- 
served. The Absolute can find nothing with which 
he can contrast himself. A subject can knotv itself 
only as it stands over against an object. The Abso- 
lute is alone, and consequently has no object. This 
is the chief reason for making him unconscious. 
But a little careful attention given our own con- 
sciousness will help us out of this difficulty. It is 
true that objective reality acts upon the subject and 
produces certain states of consciousness. We posit 
upon the experience of such states certain objects; 
but the fact itself is that the subject is aware of its 
own states; and that these states are its objects. 
The separation of subject and object is not ontolo- 
gical, it is only epistemological. Subject and object 
are the same state of consciousness; the conscious 
subject has for its object its own state. In perfect 
analogy, the Absolute needs no being outside of 
itself in order to be able to be conscious. As intel- 
ligent, He, and now we may begin to use the per- 
sonal pronoun in referring to the Absolute, must 
know the purpose of the action and the action itself. 



108 REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

These requirements of reason point us not only to 
consciousness in the Absolute, but to self- conscious » 
ness, which is the highest form of consciousness. 
It would meet no demand of reason to say that the 
Absolute is impersonal; for the only kind of self- 
directed intelligence known to us is that of person- 
ality. Personality is the highest category of 
thought; and only the most cogent reasons could 
compel us to think of the Absolute in any other 
than terms of personality. It can never be made 
clear to reason that the Absolute working blindly 
should arrive at the definite result of personality at 
the end of its development. Would any logician 
look for more in the event than is contained in the 
cause ? Something must needs be created or smug- 
gled in from some other source; and in either case 
there is a definite something that has an existence 
without a sufficient reason. It is inconceivable that 
personality could appear in the outcome of a process, 
if it were not involved in the process itself. It is 
the result of a peculiar distortion of our nature to 
conceive the Absolute otherwise than as a person- 
ality. 

We worship a personal God; not because we are 
overcome by feelings of wonder and amazement; 
but because we carry the idea of the Absolute Per- 



THE PERSONALITY OF THE ABSOLUTE. I09 

sonality in our own nature. We do not proceed 
from a limited personality to the unlimited ; we pro- 
ceed rather from that which is in process of realiza- 
tion to that which is already perfectly realized. We 
have already remarked that it is impossible for rea- 
son to believe otherwise than that the ideals toward 
which it is impelled are fully realized somewhere, 
in some being. Human consciousness has an insati- 
able impulse to comprehend reality. As it lays hold 
upon different phenomena, it orders them into its 
own world. The world of the individual is the 
world of variety held together in the unity of his 
own consciousness. It meets objects, no matter 
how obstinate, with the perfect assurance that it is 
able to subdue them into harmony with its own 
world. That which it aims to be it some time ex- 
pects fully to realize, and cannot otherwise than 
believe that it is fully realized in the Absolute Per- 
sonality. The finite Spirit is characterized by both 
immanence and transcendence. The finite person 
is present in all parts of his world of experience. 
This world is comprehended in the unity of his con- 
sciousness. So the Absolute Person must hold in 
its own embrace all the objects of the world, both 
personal and impersonal. They have existence only 
in the comprehensiveness of his being. The finite 



I IO REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

person must recognize a transcendent world; for 
while he embraces fully the world of his experience 
he is touched on every side by the consciousness of 
ideals unrealized. These ideals are of infinite reach. 
Man cannot but believe that these ideals are realized 
somewhere. The perfect comprehension of all real- 
ity in the unity of a single consciousness is the chief 
characteristic of the Absolute Personality. It is the 
individual consciousness that gives worth to the 
different parts of its contents. It is only as the 
Absolute is present in all parts of reality that these 
parts have worth. In the Absolute we cannot 
recognize ideals unrealized. We must rather be- 
lieve that he is immanent in all things; and is con- 
sequently an infinite personality. 

In the experience of the human ego the devel- 
opment is gradual. It realizes itself as it proceeds 
along the lines indicated by its ideals. With it the 
world is never present in consciousness in its en- 
tirety. It is limited and can attend to but a small 
part of its world at the same time, the greater part 
of its world is out of sight for it. We cannot be- 
lieve, however, that the Absolute is confronted by 
any unrealized ideals, or that he can attend to but 
a part of his world, but, on the contrary, he is 
immanent in the whole world of his construction^ 



THK PERSONALITY OF THE ABSOLUTE. 1 1 1 

and knows nothing of impossibilities. He is per- 
fectly conscious of every part of the world; and, 
because confronted by no other principle, is per- 
fectly able to realize his own plan. 

We have now followed the directions of our 
rational impulses, and have arrived at the idea of 
the Absolute Personality. I venture to say it is the 
only legitimate goal of all science and of all moral 
impulses, and is the only resting place for reason. 
Having now reached the Absolute Person, we will 
look about in the next two chapters to see what are 
some of his attributes, and what his relation to the 
world is. 



NECESSARY ATTRIBUTES OF THE ABSO- 
LUTE PERSON. 



Having arrived at the idea of the Absolute Per- 
sonality, we want to consider what the idea implies 
and what it must include in order to be true to 
itself. Truth is a consistent unity. No theist is 
afraid of truth. An eternal disadvantage clings to 
those who linger in error; but an eternal gain comes 
to them who walk in the truth. The atheist will 
look at one set of facts and dismiss other sets from 
his mind altogether; the Christian theist does not 
fear to face all facts, for he firmly believes that 
truth is its own vindication, and that truth will 
make free, Man's nature prompts him to seek 
unity in the world of phenomena. Polytheism had 
its origin in the fact that different classes of phe- 
nomena differed so radically from one another, that 
they seemed to be accounted for by a diversity of 
principles. They believed that these sets of phe- 
nomena differed so greatly from one another, that 
their respective principles must be different divini- 

112 



The necessary attributes. 113 

ties. Science has demonstrated that though these 
sets seem to differ so greatly, still they are con- 
stantly found in interaction; and their principles 
are united in the Absolute. 

We are consequently led to the positive convic- 
tion that the Absolute is the "Only God." It 
would not be consistent logic to think of Him as a 
lump that can be separated into any number of 
parts. Such a lump would not be characterized by 
unit}'. The only unit known in physics is the atom. 
It has a number of activities, and these cannot be 
interfered with. Give the atom the environment 
suitable to its nature, and it will act. It has chem- 
ical affinity, and it has gravitative force. It cannot 
be divided, it always manifests the same qualities. 

We have another illustration of unity. It is 
unity as found in human consciousness. The ego 
is susceptible of a variety of actions. It thinks, it 
feels, it wills; and yet in all these actions it is itself 
an undivided unity. In its past history, as well as 
when it projects itself into the future, it is forced 
to recognize itself as the ever self -identical being. 

The absolute must be thought as such a unit. 
A composite, in which any part has the same quali- 
ties as the whole, will not satisfy the demand of 
reason in its search for unity. The world of variety 



114 RBI/IGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

is not a world composed of the various parts into 
which the Absolute is divided; but it is the outcome 
of the various activities of the one Absolute. He, 
the Infinite, grasps and holds the whole variety of 
relationship in the unity of His own being; "for in 
him we live and move and have our being." 

It is said that nature is in a state of continual 
flux. This idea is a generalization from the study 
of nature. There is nothing firm and established. 
All things are subject to continual change. The 
acorn develops into a shrub, the shrub into a tree, 
the tree is caught by a cyclone and hurled to the 
ground; it is given over to the process of decay; 
and it is no more. The elements that once consti- 
tuted it have gone back to the store house from 
which they were taken; a whole cycle of change 
has been made. There is nothing stable in the 
whole process. If the phenomena of nature change, 
and do so unceasingly, then we would naturally be- 
lieve that the principle accounting for this change 
must change also. We look into our own conscious- 
ness, we remember the purposes of our actions are 
not fixed; but that they change as we develop. May 
not the Absolute be thus changeable ? We must not 
forget to notice the difference between the finite and 
the Infinite in this respect. 



THE NECESSARY ATTRIBUTES. 115 

The finite expands by reaching out for truth 
which the finite has not yet mastered. The finite 
changes, because new forces are caused to interact 
with it. The Absolute cannot thus be conceived to 
change; because there is no objective reality to in- 
teract with Him ; seeing He comprehends the whole 
world of reality in Himself. The cause for action 
and the cause for change of action must come from 
within, not from without. The change must come 
from His own decisions. Reason cannot believe 
that He, who knows Himself, and is conditioned by 
no outside reality, should be changeable. Even 
nature, when carefully studied, is not as change- 
able as she may at first appear. While there are 
many changing phenomena; there are principles 
which do not change, but are ever the same. The 
law of gravitation is the same to-day that it was 
when this planet was first hurled into space. Chem- 
ical affinity is the same to-day as it was when first 
simple elements were united into compounds. The 
planets in space have not deviated from their orbit, 
through the passing centuries; but they swing in 
perfect obedience to the same direction they had 
when they were first discovered by the earliest 
astronomers. The stream of water is ever flowing; 
the same particles do not twice in ages pass the same 



Il6 RELIGION A RATION AI, DEMAND. 

point; but the stream is the same. Water in a 
certain temperature is transformed into a solid and 
in another is changed into a gas. The water may 
change from one state into another; but the law 
according to which it changes is unchangeable. 
The acorn grows into a shrub, into a tree; it dies 
and decays; the particles are continually changing 
their relation to one another, but this change takes 
place according to certain fixed laws. The laws of 
change are ever the same. 

Religious faith does not demand a static principle 
but an active one, not a dead deity, but a living 
cause; not one that does not act at all; but one that 
acts according to unchangeable directions. Chang- 
ing phenomena are compatible with never changing 
principles causing them to change; but the fact that 
these changes always follow in a certain direction, 
and according to certain principles, is evidence that 
the action springs from a cause, or a nature, that is 
constant throughout all phenomenal change. Man's 
intellectual and moral natures are such that they 
demand unchangeable principles; and those princi- 
ples can be found only in a Absolute who, though 
an active spirit, acts always according to an un- 
changeable nature. 

* * * 



the necessary attributes. 117 

Our idea of God as a space filling substance 
would be inconsistent with the idea of his spirit- 
uality. The Absolute cannot be matter; for mat- 
ter is not able to stand alone. He cannot be simple 
force; for force needs direction in order to work 
out definite results; and besides this, it needs to 
have its origin in will. Will and intelligence, in all 
cases that we know, are found only in connection 
with spirits. Metaphysics proves that matter is not 
one thing and space another, and that space has a 
reality of its own. On the contrary, it has proven 
that things exist and interact and enter into such 
relation to each other, that the thinking subject is 
stimulated to space intuitions. Spirits are not pres- 
ent in space because they fill space; but because 
space is their intuition awakened by the sight of 
certain relations between things. The individual 
is not present in every part of the world of his 
experience by filling the space, but by being in each 
part of the world in his entire spiritual energy. I 
am present in the entire world of my knowledge and 
affections; and yet I do not know myself as extended. 
The ego is non-spatial. We cannot believe God to 
be a spatial being. There is unity in our world of 
experience because the ego holds the different phe- 
nomena in such a relationship. There is unity in 



Il8 REUGION A RATION AI, DKMAND. 

the universe, because science proves interaction; 
and metaphysics proves that there can be no inter- 
action except between the elements of a unitary 
being. It further proves that the various phenom- 
ena are but different states of the same being. This 
leads us to the attribute of omnipresence, for the 
Absolute must be present in all His states. Omni- 
presence is a further requirement of reason in as 
much as everything in nature needs an active cause 
as its explanation. As the life of the plant must 
be present in every part of the organism, so the life 
of the universe must be present in every part of the 
whole realm of phenomena. The human ego illus- 
trates the possibility. It is present in every part 
of its world of Knowledge and volition. Man's 
world is but a part of the real world. The world of 
the Absolute is the entire world; as man is present 
in every part of his limited world, so the Absolute 
is present in every part of the whole real world. 

While finite beings act upon each other by 
contact, or through means at a distance, space 
indicating the degree of closeness in the relation- 
ship. The relation of part to part is often mediated 
by other parts. With the Absolute the relation be- 
tween parts is set by Himself ; and He is the super- 
natural condition of both the things themselves and 



THE NECESSARY ATTRIBUTES. 119 

their relations. He conditions them and conse- 
quently cannot be conditioned by them. The part 
is external to the part and limits it. The part is in 
the whole and the whole is present in every part. 
Space is only an abstraction from relationship and 
as relations are determined by the Absolute, these 
relations cannot be made to limit Him. 

The Christian theist is consistent with the 
demands of his own logic, when in the act of prayer, 
he is confident that he is not communing with a 
being that must traverse space to meet and relieve 
human wants, but that enters into communion with 
man immediately without intervention. 

The Christian theist has an interest in the ques- 
tion, whether the Absolute is limited in the mani- 
festation of His power. It would naturally rob him 
of his fervor, if he were assured that, in the pres- 
ence of petitions, there was indeed a listening ear, 
but a shortened arm. An impotent deity would 
not call forth the reverence which the human heart 
is stimulated to bring some one. The demands of 
the heart in this respect find their gratification in 
consistent logic. Our logic followed out consist- 
ently leads us back to the Absolute First Principle. 
It can have no other principles besides itself. As 
the Absolute is the basal fact of reality, all things 



I2C RELIGION A RATION AI, DEMAND. 

must come from Him. As Absolute He must be 
above all limitation. We sometimes hear it said 
that He is able to do the possible; as though some- 
thing was outside of his reach; and as though some- 
one, back of Him, made a distinction between the 
possible and the impossible, and commanded Him to 
act within certain limits. Such limitation would be 
inconsistent with our idea of the Absolute; it would 
make Him a finite being. The entire order of nature 
is His order; and disorder is the outcome of actions 
that do not conform to His order. He is not limited 
by any law outside of Himself, for there is no such 
law, and nothing, or no one, to establish such laws. 
Again we learn from metaphysics that only things 
and their relations exist. Laws are only abstrac- 
tions from the actions of things. 

Even the rational order is not an order to which 
He must submit, as though He were thereby limited. 
The rational order is His order; and rational laws 
are only abstractions from His mode of procedure; 
and His procedure is consistent with His own 
nature. We are naturally inclined to speak of a 
moral order; and then we, looking at Him from 
our own limited standpoint, imagine He must be 
bound by that order. Morality is not superim- 
posed ; it is the out working of His own nature. 



THE NECESSARY ATTRIBUTES. 121 

Moral laws are laws, again, only by abstraction 
from His mode of procedure. The impossible or 
the irrational are not such, because determined to 
be such by some limiting power ; they are such 
because He has made them so Himself. Necessary 
laws, such as the laws of thought, are not made 
such by some extraneous power; they are such by 
the will of the Absolute. The true, the rational, 
the right are expressions of His own nature. 
Omnipotence does not mean that the Absolute 
must at any time be able to make the irrational 
rational, or the wrong right. His actions are but 
the expression of His nature. The further question, 
whether He is able to change His nature, is similar 
to the one asking, whether He created Himself, and 
both are without an answer. The true and the 
absurd, the right and the wrong, the rational and 
the irrational are but abstractions from His actions, 
and are not limitations from without. Self-limita- 
tions do not count against absoluteness. 

^ 5fc ^ 

A similar process of reasoning may be employed 
with reference to His eternity. Just as space is not 
an entity outside of things, to which they must 
conform; so time is not an external entity to which 
they must adapt themselves. Time and space are 



122 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

the forms of relation between things, the former of 
succession the latter of co-existence. Time is the 
form of succession and change. It has not an 
existence which the Absolute must conquer. It is 
the succession of his own creation. He is not con- 
ditioned by time, but conditions time Himself. The 
law of causation points to the fact that phenomena 
follow each other in an ordered chain or line. The 
Absolute cannot be brought into this line ; for there 
was no instance in the whole chain in which pre- 
existing conditions gave rise to the Absolute. 
There is not a link in the whole chain but was 
forged by the Absolute. He therefore comprehends 
the whole and can not be subject thereto. 



THE RELATION OF THE ABSOLUTE TO 
NATURE. 



We have thus far considered the conception of 
the absolute, and have noticed what elements that 
conception contains. We must now consider His 
relation to the cosmical order. This order must be 
construed to embrace all finite beings. 

The world has been considered to be a part of 
God, as the wave is a part of the ocean, or as the 
branch is part of the tree, or the part of space is a 
part of the infinite space. This view has been con- 
sidered above. Its great fallacy lies in the fact that 
it considers the Absolute as a substance capable of 
division and subdivision. This view would account 
for the multiplicity and variety of phenomena, but 
not for ther unity ; besides it is incompatible with 
the true nature of things on account of its material- 
istic basis. We have seen, time and again, that the 
Absolute cannot be considered a substance divisible 
into infinity; for that which is divisible is composite 
and has no true unity. The scientific explanation 
of things is in terms of causation; and substance is 
123 



124 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

only a hypothetical assumption to explain phe- 
nomena. 

The Absolute must therefore be an agent. An 
agent is a unit. It is not divided into parts to cor- 
respond to its various actions. Increased action 
does not increase the agent; nor is the agent less 
on account of his actions. The Absolute is not 
decreased by creating the world. Parts of Him are 
not set apart to form it. We can not say that it 
emanated from Him. The substance of the world 
was never the substance of God. He must be con- 
ceived as an agent and an agent is never lessened by 
his act. The act is not a part of the agent. The 
act performed does not change the agent. Only an 
agent can be active in a diversity of manner with- 
out thereby becoming divided himself. The world 
as a diversity of parts cannot be identified with the 
Absolute, who must be conceived as a unit Plur- 
ality of attributes is compatible with a unity of 
being ; and in this sense nature is to be viewed not 
as a part of God nor as an emanation from him, but 
as the act of an agent. 

The reality of the finite being and the unity of 
the Absolute can be reconciled only upon the the- 
istic view, that the finite is the creation or act of the 
Infinite. Quantative and spatial considerations 



THE RELATION OF THE ABSOLUTE. "1 25 

must be dropped when the relation of finite to 
Infinite, or creation to God, is in question. 

Not giving any attention to the lesser forms of 
pantheism, which have no scientific value, it does 
nevertheless become necessary to consider that form 
to which science has a strong tendency to lead us. 
Especially does it tend to do that if it is not far 
reaching enough to explain its own data. The 
universe has been considered as a vast organism, 
or a great animal. The force, which must be 
assumed as the starting point, was perfectly homo- 
geneous, but has through steady differentiation and 
integration developed itself into a multitude of 
organs. This development after the analogy of an 
animal is not due to any volition on the part of the 
force itself; but it is a necessary outcome of the 
nature of that force. Efficient causation, says 
science, accounts for everything. Given the ante- 
cedent the consequent must follow with absolute 
necessity. A complete explanation of the event is 
found in the cause or causes. It is true that science 
proceeds upon this principle and has a perfect right 
so to do. When one asks the question, why one 
set of phenomena result fiom one antecedent, and 
another set from another, the only satisfactory ans- 
wer is that the two antecendents must differ. It is 



126 REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

true that a difference in antecedents is the necessary 
explanation of a difference in consequence. Logic 
cannot settle the question, which would inevitably 
arise, how the perfectly homogeneous force could 
account for the difference in the effects. A mechan- 
ical outcome must have a mechanical determina- 
tion. And the mechanical determination is the 
point to be accounted for. Mechanism is the 
method of nature. Mechanism makes science pos- 
sible; but an explanation is necessary for the 
mechanism. Mechanism for its explanation must 
have intelligence; and intelligence is the attribute of 
a person. The watch is a prefect piece of mechan- 
ism ; but the mechanism points beyond itself. The 
wheels of the watch and the springs are of such a 
nature and size that when put together they serve 
the purpose of keeping time. The process by 
which time is indicated is mechanical, but the 
mechanism cannot account for itself. Neither does 
a mechanism account for the facts of nature. 
There are free causes in the world and these free 
causes, or free wills, are repugnant to the view that 
the world of phenomena is an outcome of the self- 
differentiation of force. In the human mind there is 
evidence which counteracts the assumption of a 
necessary developement. Thought is not a neces^ 



THK RELATION OF THE ABSOLUTE. 1 27 

sary outcome of the interaction of the brain with 
the object it stands in contact with. If thought 
was the necessary outcome, error would be an im- 
possibility; but it is a fact that thought often 
changes and not always because the environment 
changes, but often in obedience to an effort of the 
will. 

The history of science indicates vast changes in 
the ideas entertained about things, which in them- 
selves have not correspondingly changed. 

Intelligence can be consistently held only in con- 
nection with freedom. Seeing that there are facts 
in nature which do not follow as necessary conse- 
quents form antecedents, we must give up the tena- 
bility of the theory that nature is the necessary 
outcome of a development of force. 

The only alternative view is that the world is a 
creative act. We have noticed that intelligence 
demands freedom. The homogeneous force must 
account for its own differentiation; seeing that 
there is nothing outside of it to determine it. 
Science assumes that facts and phenomena of nature 
are intelligent; and intelligence demands an intelli- 
gent determination No matter how many links 
there may be in the chain of causation, ultimately 
the mechanism must be referred to free causation; 



128 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

and the free cause determines the differentiated 
mechanism. The differentiation is determined by 
nothing but the Absolute and thus must be the 
result of His own free will. 

He is not the shaper of the world; for that 
would imply co-existent matter; and that conflicts 
with the unity of the Absolute. He is not the 
shaper, but the creator of the universe. He does 
not only put the element together ; but He forms the 
elements themselves. The elements were not first 
made as obstinate creations and then put together 
into forms as best they could be. But as the 
mechanic shapes the parts of a machine, so that 
they may fit together to realize the purpose for 
which the machine was intended; so the Creator 
created the atoms, and the free spirits, with such 
natures and in such quantities as the plan of the 
whole system demands. The atoms are not princi- 
ples with which the Absolute must contend. He 
himself must account for them. An unconscious 
development of the homogeneous into intelligent 
results is seen to contradict reason when we remem- 
ber that the Absolute does not derive His existence 
from some other source, but has it in Himself. No 
other principle can stimulate Him to activity, for 
there is none such ; for by hypothesis the homo* 



THE RELATION OF THE ABSOLUTE. 1 29 

geneous is the Absolute. The activity must spring 
from Himself. Such a determination is self-deter- 
mination, and our former argument is sustained that 
the homogeneous of the materialist is the Absolute 
Person of the theist. 

It is supposed by some that nature tvhen once 
created is able to run itself by virtue of its own 
power and stability. It is supposed that the ele- 
ments have an independent existence of their own 
and are indestructible. Science does teach the 
indestructibility of the atom, but considers it beyond 
its sphere to tell us why it is indestructible. The 
ordinary conception is that they are so many solid 
particles piled upon one another; and that they, by 
virtue of their reality as masses constitute matter. 
And because they are thus even God must allow 
them to exist and do with them only what their 
nature will allow. 

The general conception of atoms as held by 
scientific men will be noticed from the following 
citations: (The Physical Properties of Gases by 
Kimball P. 19.) "It is now held with some varia- 
tion in detail by almost all scientific men; and 
although when it is asserted that the ultimate parti- 
cles of a body such as a block of iron, ordinarily 
thought of as fixed and solid are in a state of the 



130 RKUGION A RATION AI, DEMAND. 

most intense activity, making millions of vibrations 
in a second. So many and so different are the facts 
that point in this direction that it seems necessary 
to conclude that what is thus conceived to be the 
structure of material bodies must in its principle 
features be very near the truth." L,otze say: (Out- 
line of Metaphysics P. 112.) "Every volume filled 
up with matter consists of an infinite number of 
real beings, which in themselves have no extension, 
but which on account of their relation to one an- 
other prescribe places in space .... and these, by 
means of the sum of all their reciprocal action, 
effectuate extension in general." Thus it is that 
the ultimate nature of things is a constant activity. 
According to L,otze's definition of an atom, when it 
ceases to act it ceases to be. No finite thing is self- 
sufficient; it points to something beyond itself; to 
something that is related with it and causes it to be 
what it is. The finite thing cannot be a center of 
self generated energy; for it points to a general 
fountain head of such energy. Energy propagated 
from one finite object to another must be constantly 
replenished ; and the requirement of sound logic is 
that the energy must come from some source that 
has energy in itself, by virtue of its own being. 
The only answer to the vexed question is that the 



THE RELATION OF THE ABSOtUTE. I31 

atom has indestructibility, not on account of any 
right or merit of its own; but because the Absolute 
constitutes it a permanent center of force. 

Again it is said that the universe is sustained by 
natural laws. It is supposed that nature and God 
are two distinct entities, and that what the one does 
the other need not do, and that they mutually limit 
one another. It is this conception that led men to 
believe that God is required in nature only where 
there are breaks and chasms which science cannot 
bridge over, and that no God is needed where nature 
can explain her own action. It is this view which 
has made science appear so inimical to religion. It 
is said, that before men found efficient causation in 
nature, every phenomenon was directly attributed to 
God ; but now efficient causation takes the place of 
God; and God is pushed back into miracles and 
chasms unexplained by nature. Nature thus be- 
comes a mechanism capable of sustaining itself by 
virtue of its own inherent power. 

We will now look into these facts to see what 
reason demands concerning them. We know of no 
law that acts independent of the thing. All laws, 
or all conceptions of law, are but abstractions from 
the actions of agents. A law is not a power in 
itself; it is the mode of activity of something. The 



132 RKlylGION A RATION AI, DEMAND. 

laws of thought are not laws prescribed for the 
thinker by someone outside of himself; they are 
abstractions from the mode of procedure in concrete 
thought. The laws of material substances are not 
forces acting upon matter from without; but they 
are modes according to which things in themselves 
act. Every particle of matter is a little agent. 
The law of his activity is abstracted from his 
actions. The little agents are not independent for 
they act and interact in a united system. They are 
not self-sufficient ; but the} r point beyond them- 
selves for their explanations. Neither the agent 
nor his mode of activity can be accounted for by 
the agent himself. Neither is the atom an in- 
exhaustible fount of energy, when created, for that 
would make the atom itself a god. 

The conclusion of the whole matter is that 
efficient causation acting according to natural law 
is not fatal to the idea of God's immanence in 
nature. The world does move according to these 
laws; but law is the mode of action of some agent. 
That agent cannot ultimately be the atom; for the 
atom is not self-sufficient. The atom itself is but 
a discrete point in a single system. Consequently 
the real agent must be a unit and that unit is the 
Absolute. 



THE RELATION OF THE ABSOLUTE. 1 33 

It is incorrect to say that the world process 
sustains itself. The world process is but the activ- 
ity of the Infinite Agent. The world process be- 
cause systematic and intelligent requires an explana- 
tion just as certainly as though it were disconnected 
and full of breaks; an orderly arrangement needs 
an explanation just as well as does a disorderly one. 
The world as mechanism is not self-sufficient; it is 
only a process and the mechanical process requires 
the Absolute for its explanation, just as truly as 
though it were in every respect desultory. 

The Absolute as person transcends nature ; but 
as Creator and Preserver he is immanent in every 
part of the whole world process. He is the never 
exhaustible fountain that supplies every atom with 
its store of energy, which, if He would refuse to fur- 
nish supplies, would immediately cease to exist. 

If there were no free moral agency in the world 
we could now finish this brief discussion of the rela- 
tion of God to nature. It would then be an un- 
broken mechanism. But there is free, or self-deter- 
mined, activity in the world and this urges us to 
the consideration, that the relation of God to the 
material world in creation and in preservation does 
not itself secure the purpose for which it all exists. 
It is, therefore, necessary to consider another rela- 



134 RKUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

tion which He sustains to the world, and most 
especially to moral agents and that is the relation- 
ship of governor. It is this government that will 
constitute the second part of this book. 



PART IL 

The Idea of Man and 
His Relation to God. 



MAN ESSENTIALLY SPIRITUAL. 



The body of man will not receive special atten- 
tion in this treatise, except as it is related to the 
self. We are concerned here not with bodily con- 
struction, nor, even, with its activity, except as its 
activity is related to the self. 

It has been maintained by some that man is 
essentially material; and, as such, his thoughts and 
actions are mechanically determined. If this turns 
out, upon due examinalion, to be so, then the world 
has no government; then all is pure mechanism; and 
this part of our work is not necessary. It is true 
man has a physical nature ; and this physical nature 
is a perfect mechanism, in which every part is 
determined to activity by every other part. This 
mechanism is composed of different parts, or organs ; 
and every part has its own particular function to 
perform. The lower limbs are constructed for loco- 
motion, the hand for prehension, the teeth for masti- 
cation, the stomach for digestion, the lungs for the 
aeration of blood, the liver for the secretion of bile, 
and, so say the materialists, the brain for the secre- 
tion of thought. (137) 



138 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

They say it is no more difficult for the brain to 
secrete thought than it is for the liver to secrete 
bile. Illustratious do sometimes captivate and 
cause people to believe that which in reality is not 
fact. It must be remembered that bile and thought 
are two different things. The one is quantitative 
and has sensible qualities, while the other has not 
these characterics. The one possesses every material 
quality while the other does not possess them. We 
will now briefly consider the difference, and what 
this difference will compel us to assume as its 
explanation. 

The difference of the two sets of phenomena was 
noticed by Plato, and was again clearly seen by 
Descartes, who recognized them as the expression of 
two entities, in themselves distinct, but standing in 
the relation of an "occasional' ' interaction. Spinoza 
met the problem and proceeded to its solution. He 
thought that thought and extension were two attri- 
butes of one and the same substance. He, seeing 
plainly that the attributes contradicted one another, 
thought having no extension, and extension having 
not the unity of thought, made them the attributes 
of a transcendental substance, in which possibly the 
attributes might not conflict. A transcendental 
substance with contradictory qualities is not clear 



MAN ESSENTIALLY SPIRITUAL. 1 39 

to thought; and can, consequently, not be taken 
as an hypothesis. 

Materialism, seeing the irreconcilability of these 
qualities, emphasized matter and made spiritual 
phenomena its product. It believes that as the color 
of the rainbow is produced through the falling rain- 
drop and vanishes when the raindew mingles with 
the water of the earth; so thought and intelligence 
are produced through the brain and vanish when 
the brain ceases to act. Materialism says that the 
only antecedent to thought is brain action ; and it 
must consequently explain thought. When two 
nerve centers are for some time stimulated in con- 
nection or in close succession, it gives rise to the 
eKperience of connectedness in experience. When 
an excitement passes along certain tracts and does 
so repeatedly, a pathway is made for such excite- 
ment; and in consequence of this pathway, nerve 
energy is discharged most easily along this line; 
thus habit and reproduction are accounted for. 
There is no volition; everything is mechanically 
determined. 

Physiological psychology has indeed demon- 
strated that different parts of the Drain are con- 
nected with different mental functions. The fact 
that there is connection or interaction between the 



140 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

brain and mental life is no sign that one element in 
the interaction does not exist. Because oxygen 
under certain circumstances and conditions unites 
with hydrogen to form water is no evidence that 
hydrogen does not exist. The oxygen without the 
hydrogen would remain oxygen. The oxygen has 
disappeared and another substance has appeared 
in its stead; because it has interacted with the 
hydrogen. If it is true that the brain is the only 
element in consciousness and its states are the con- 
tents of mental life, then certain consequents would 
necessarily follow upon such a hypothesis Scien- 
tists inform us that molecules are in a state of rapid 
vibration, and that the molecules of the brain are in 
a state of continual change. If consciousness would 
be the recognition of the state of the brain, it would 
necessarily be of this molecular motion of the brain; 
but experience does not corroborate the demands of 
the hypothesis. The state of the brain is the last 
thing we are conscious of. Even the expert neurol- 
ogist does not know the brain motions that are the 
direct antecedent of certain mental states. We are 
conscious not of brain conditions, normally, but of 
phenomena. In sight we are not conscious of the eye, 
but simply of light. The consciousness that the eye 
is an organ of vision is the result of experimentation. 



MAN ESSENTIALLY SPIRITUAL. 1 4 1 

Science informs us that the material world is a 
world of motion; and that the result of force is 
motion of some kind. We will concede that motion 
of the ether effects the eye; and that the effect 
upon the eye is propagated through the optic nerve 
to the visual center in the brain. It is motion in 
the ether; it is molecular motion in the eye, in the 
optic nerve and in the visual center; but in con- 
sciousness it is sensation. It is evident that sensa- 
tion is a new phenomenon. It is not motion; it is 
so vastly different from motion that it cannot be 
placed in the same category. Motion of one kind 
can always be transformed into motion of another 
substratum. It cannot be rendered plain, or clear 
to reason, how motion in the brain can be trans- 
formed into sensation without having the motion 
pass into another substratum to account for the 
change. 

The motion in one instant appears as sensation 
in another. The nervous process that awakens 
consciousness effects a multiplicity of molecules 
along the nerve tract. Consciousness of the sensa- 
tion is not carried along the nerve tract stimulated; 
there is no consciousness in the stimulated molecule 
along the tract: but a unitary being reacts upon the 
motion and it is conscious of its own reaction. This 



142 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

reaction is consciousness. This being reacts upon 
the stimulus and is conscious of its own state. 
Green in Proligomena To Ethics, p. 81 f. says that: 
"The intelligence of man is free. It is not deter- 
mined in its conception of the world from without ; 
but it reacts upon this stimulus according to its own 
inherent nature." Were this not a fact, it would 
be difficult to determine how error in judgment 
could arise. From very trifling data great and far 
reaching conclusions are drawn. The result is not 
determined by the antecedent; or, in other words, 
the result is not the outcome of the preceding forces. 
There is a certain freedom thus revealed in the 
activity of the self, which no mechanical process 
can explain. 

The further along we get in our experience the 
more the true nature of man's essential being 
becomes manifest. We have a manifold variety of 
sensations. We use this world with the significance 
already given it in the forgoing; but there they are 
all united into the unity of a single object; and 
there the various objects are classified and organized 
by the free activity of the mind itself. It is deter- 
mined to action by nothing, but itself. There are 
elements in our experience which empiricism cannot 
account for. All individual experiences are united 



MAN ESSENTIALLY SPIRITUAL. 143 

into the unity of a single system; the unity can be 
accounted for only by a relating being, a being able 
to lay hold upon different facts and establish rela- 
tions between them. I will briefly illustrate from 
science what is meant by this relating activity. 
The brain is made up of different nerve centers; 
and each center is supposed to have its own specific 
activity. The visual center is the center of sight; 
the auditory center is the center of hearing; the 
olfactory center is the center of smell; the gust- 
atory center is the center of taste; and the motor 
centers governing the various motions of the body. 
Activity takes place in a great variety of centers 
and in myriads of cells in each center; and all this 
diversity of activity is united and organized into 
the unity of a single object. Into these objects ele- 
ments enter that do not come by way of sensation. 
No mind, for instance, has ever had any sensation 
of space and yet space is an important element in 
material perception. The element of space present 
in the intuition of all material objects is furnished 
by the mind itself by direct insight. 

The visual center receives impressions from the 
activity of ether, the auditory from activity of the 
air, the olfactory from the effluvia touching the 
mucus lining of the nasal passage, and the gusta- 



144 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

tory from action upon the tongue; but in conscious- 
ness neither light, nor sound, nor smell, nor taste 
appear, but the object by which these impressions 
are made. If all the activity was directed into a 
single cell of the brain, the cell, if it were conscious- 
ness itself, could at best only be conscious of its own 
state; and if the activity from the various sources 
would meet in that cell, the outcome would be sim- 
ply the resultant of the various activities. The 
molecular activity along the optic nerve, and that 
coming along the line of the auditory would neces- 
sarily run together, and the result would be neither 
the one nor the other, and yet would partake of the 
nature of both. The color and the taste of an 
orange are kept perfectly distinct, and yet they are 
united in the unity of a single object. The unity 
of consciousness is a rock upon which the material- 
istic school of philosophy wrecks itself. Unity of 
consciousness is the charge that blows materialism 
into fragments. We have seen that the only being 
that we can conceive of being a unity and yet com- 
prehending diversity is a spirit. The consciousness 
of man contains universal elements and these also 
are not derived from external influences acting upon 
him. Hume has pointed out that the idea of causa- 
tion is not derived from experience. Kant has 



MAN ESSENTIALLY SPIRITUAL. 1 45 

shown that the intuitious of space and time and the 
categories of the judgment are not derived from 
experience, but are the furniture of the understand- 
ing, or of the mind itself, and are absolutely neces- 
sary for the possibility of experience at all, 

We have pointed out in the first part of this 
work that matter is not matter outside of conscious- 
ness; every atom bears upon itself the stamp of 
mentality. Motion, that seems to count for so 
much with the materialist, has existence only in 
consciousness. The mind, it is true, is related to 
the external world ; but the external world is the 
world as viewed in consciousness, never outside of 
it. It is not said that the mind makes the material 
in its own act of thinking. It is rather the signi- 
ficance of what has been said that the mind in its 
reaction upon external stimulus has certain sensa- 
tions; and that the mind reacting according to its 
own nature does give the world those universal 
principles, which are not themselves derived from 
the external world by experience. This is not Sub- 
jective Idealism; that doctrine is not tenable. The 
Absolute it is, in whom we live, move and have our 
being ; and this Absolute energizes at innumerable 
discrete points, and out of this energy the mind 
organizes its world of experience. The Author of 



I46 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

nature has created consciousness and the other ele- 
ments of nature that they in their interaction with 
consciousness from the world of experience. If the 
lenses of our eyes were different, how differently 
things would appear in size. When a man is highly 
intoxicated he sees things which do not appear to 
other minds at all. It is a certain activity of the 
brain; and the mind assumes an object to account 
for the action. The nature of the intelligence is 
therefore not that of a copyist, who takes nature 
and makes a likeness of it. The mind has rather a 
free activity, one uncaused by anything but its own 
nature. It works upon and organizes the elements 
into forms specified and determined by its own 
nature. Intelligence is therefore free. It must be 
dissociated with the world of phenomena, which 
stand in the relation of the categories to one another. 
The mind itself contains these categories; they pre- 
cede ail experience. The mind precedes the objec- 
tive world for it is only in relation to the subject 
that the object becomes object. Thus distinguished 
from the phenomenal world, man has a nature dis- 
tinctively spiritual. Not that all material phe- 
nomena have not a spiritual basis ; but that man is 
not related to the phenomenal world as are phe- 



MAN KSSENTIAIXY SPIRITUAL. 1 47 

nomena ; but he stands over against them and is 
their lord and master. 

The ideals of man's rational nature are such that 
they cannot be considered the result of the growth 
of experience; but since they possess a universal 
nature, they are the revelation of God to him; and 
in so far as they are universal, they must belong to 
something that transcends all diversity of particu- 
lars, and that can be only Spirit. 

We simply wish to show in this chapter that 
man is not a part of the phenomenal world, but is 
of a higher order. Phenomenal objects appear, but 
they appear in consciousness ; again, they are related 
to one another, but this relation is in consciousness. 
One object displaces another, but it is displaced from 
consciousness. Thus we see that the play of phe- 
nomena is in human consciousness ; and their change 
can never effect any more than the state of man's 
consciousness; the consciousness itself is of a differ- 
ent order. This idea is simply introduced here, it 
will be more fully developed in succeeding chapters. 



DEVELOPMENT A LAW OF HIS BEING. 



The movement of living forms is from the homo- 
geneous to a system with diversified organs. The 
organism, simple in its beginning, becomes more 
complex until it reaches its maturity. In the 
development of an organism there is a certain free- 
dom of activity. I mean by freedom a certain 
activity that springs from the nature of life itself. 
This activity is not determined by any combination 
of elements. Chemism fails to account for the phe- 
nomena of life. When life ceases to hold together 
the constituent elements, chemism soon dissolves 
them. It is the nature of life to lay hold upon mat- 
ter and by constructing certain forms to reveal its 
own nature by giving body to its own ideals. The 
nature of life does not change. From the time it 
sets free the first bioplast it has in view the matured 
form, and, if the circumstances prove favorable, that 
form will be produced. 

Two conditions are necessary for the realization 
of that end. The energizing principle must carry 
the plan of the matured structure in itself. Indeed, 
148 



DEVELOPMENT A LAW OF HIS BEING. 1 49 

it is not conscious of that plan, but unconsciously it 
aims to work it out. This plan cannot be found in 
the individual atom that enters the composition; if 
it was, there would be as many plans as there are 
individual atoms. On the contrary, all biological 
science points to the fact that all the individual 
atoms work in harmony to realize a single plan. 
The unity of the plan precedes its realization. I 
want to impress this point forcibly: that the life of 
an organism works incessantly toward the realiza- 
tion of an ideal which it unconsciously holds. It is 
evident to biologists that the plan is not realized 
mechanically by efficient causation which pushes 
the elements from behind; but a power holding in 
its embrace the ideal of its matured form, makes 
every stroke count in the realization of that plan. 

The organism is not the mechanical enlargement 
of a preformed structure. The individual organs 
of the organism are produced in the process of 
development. This is proven by the fact that in 
the simpler forms of life an organ destroyed will be 
reproduced. In the case of certain plants, the 
stem cut from the root and planted will produce 
roots; and the roots planted will produce stem. It 
is everywhere characteristic of life that it aims to 
produce a systematic unity. 



I50 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

The second condition of development is that this 
organizing power stands in relation to the forces of 
nature, present in the atom. These powers it must 
subdue and make subservient to the unity of its own 
plan. Its subduing power at first is of a very sim- 
ple nature. It controls but a few atoms at first, 
but subdues and organizes into its systems more 
and more until a amplicated structure is constructed. 
Man is not only physically a result of development; 
but he is essentially subject to the same law. The 
first experiences of his mental life are as simple as 
the first movements of the bioplast that organizes 
the body. Mental life begins with simple sensation. 
It is the simplest reaction upon stimuli. The child 
at first makes few comparisons in fact, it does not 
aim to organize its experience. Unconsciously, 
however, upon the observation of similarity and dis- 
similarity classification does begin. Similar things 
are then put into similar categories and given simi- 
lar names. Not only does the organizing power 
realize its own ideal in the structure; but it points 
toward higher phases of that ideal. Nature's move- 
ments are uniform; whether life appears in the 
physical, mental or spiritual department of the 
world, its modes of manifestation are the same. 
Why this is so, or why man should be capable of 



DEVELOPMENT A LAW OF HIS BEING. I51 

development at all is a hopeless question, but no 
more so than many other questions that we might 
ask: such as, why nature should be made in any 
part as it is. Our aim here is simply to point out 
the fact that man's essential nature, as well as his 
physical nature, is subject to the same law of devel- 
opment; and it will appear in the subsequent part 
of this discussion that this fact plays a great part in 
man's religion. Man's development consists in the 
establishment of relations. The infant taken from 
its mother in its early infancy does not feel greatly 
the loss of the mother; but after a few years of con- 
nection the relation between the child and its mother 
becomes stronger; and, in fact, possibly so strong 
that the child scarcely knows itself related to any- 
thing, or any one, but the mother. The same child 
goes to school and after a while a similar relation is 
established with the teacher. He is a young man 
and starting out in business he establishes relations 
with the commercial world. He goes into nature 
and then makes observations; he detects laws and 
is led to principles, and with these he establishes 
relations. Thus his system of experience grows 
and becomes complicated. 

Man essentially is intellectual, sensitive, and 
volitional. Man is not divided into three parts, 



152 REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

these three different functions are but three sides of 
a unitary being. This being starts out with the 
firm assurance that it is akin to the universe. It 
may not realize this assurance to its fullest extent 
at once ; but it proceeds toward its realization as it 
continues to establish relations with the different 
parts of the universe. 

In the physical make-up of man there is a rest- 
less craving. His body, when its immediate wants 
are satiated, sits down and rests in satisfaction; but 
it is otherwise with his essential nature. Here 
every advance is an incentive to another; every 
degree of culture is but a stimulus to that which 
lies beyond. The scientist goes into nature with 
the conviction that, whatever he may observe, or 
investigate, is related to his intelligence. If he be 
a geologist and meets rocks that seem an opaque 
mass, he ventures into them firmly believing in 
advance that they were put there by hands, guided 
by intelligence, and that some day even their chaotic 
appearance will reveal a cosmic order. In fact in 
every department of science the scientist considers 
himself most intimately related to the nature of that 
order. 

It is the nature of the original cell in the indi- 
vidual organism, under favorable circumstances, to 



DEVELOPMENT A LAW OF HIS BEING. 1 53 

divide and subdivide and by absorption of material 
from the outside world and co-ordination of this 
material to become a mature animal structure. Man 
in his intellectual development begins with the sim- 
plest relations and hastens forward through compli- 
cated environments until he has transformed the 
chaotic mass of the world into the intelligent con- 
struction of an ordered whole. He not only com- 
prehends all that he comes in immediate contact 
with ; but throws out the course of his comprehen- 
sion and aims to encircle the whole world of being. 
He begins with the simple, the particular, but does 
not rest short of the universal. Intellect is not 
content simply to act, it must act with a purpose. 
It is not the goal of its life simply to possess ele- 
ments of experience; they must be organized by 
certain laws and principles into systematic units, 
Fiction will not satisfy because it yearns for the 
real. The simple products of the imagination will 
not suffice, for that is individual opinion. The only 
resting place it finds is in the comprehension oi 
eternal truth, and that, in its ultimate analysis, is 
the mode of action of the Absolute Person. 

Man develops not only intellectually but morally 
as well. His intellectual nature manifests itself as 
soon as material is given it to act upon. As physi- 



154 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

cal life absorbs elements and deposits them accord- 
ing to the laws of its own activity; so mental life 
orders the chaos of its own sensations into the mold 
of its own intrinsic nature. 

And in like manner as man has an intellectual 
nature which causes him to observe and to experi- 
ment with the objects of nature until he finds those 
laws which are the exact counterpart of the laws of 
his own being; so has he also a moral nature. This 
nature is the directrix of his being. While his 
intelligence aims to find the true, his moral nature 
prompts him to seek the right. It may at first be 
without any content and have no significance except 
a formal one; yet in its formal dictates it points to 
righteousness and will never consent to anything, 
but a body of actions ordered according to its own 
principles. Its legitimate sphere of action is the 
voluntary action of man. It is formal in the sense 
that it gives form and value to tbe actions of the 
agent. It declares them right or wrong according 
to its own standard It does not pretend to be pre- 
possessed by a store of ethical knowledge, or to 
have a code of moral judgments; but it does 
build up moral judgments out of concrete 
actions. It is a life, a moral life which lays hold 
upon the material, composed of human actions, and 



DEVELOPMENT A I,AW OF HIS BEING. 1 55 

co-ordinate it into the organism of righteousness. 
It there gives to each act its own position and lays 
upon each its own legitimate value. The Principle 
of utility is the great teacher of moral judgment; 
but it is only the principle according to which they 
develop. It cannot account for the moral life any 
more than the physical organism, or the process of 
physical development, can account for natural life. 
The manifestations of the moral life are necessarily 
simple so long as the relations of the individual with 
the outside world are simple ; and it becomes more 
complex as his world of experience enlarges. The 
moral life forces its way into every part of the world 
of experience and not an element of man's free 
action escapes its discriminating power. 

Man is put into nature without his consent. 
But once here, he is compelled to act. His intel- 
lect will observe and to some degree reflect; even 
an idler cannot avoid it. To some extent he must 
develop ; but the highest development is the result 
of a conscious reaction upon external stimuli. 
The highest mental development is therefore the 
result of effort. Morally man irresistibly acts. He 
either reacts upon the stimuli with a healthy and 
worthy reaction, and the moral life expresses its 
satisfaction; or the individual allows himself to be 



156 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

borne along by his environments and his moral life 
confronts him with the feeling of his own unworthi- 
ness. As his world of conscious experience grows, 
the reaction of his moral nature grows likewise with 
an increasing sense of satisfaction or dissatisfaction, 
according as the actions will or will not conform to 
the ideals of moral life. 

Not only is he capable of development in the 
establishment of relations between him and the indi- 
vidual facts of nature; but he also develops habits. 
He is able to react along the lines of his higher con- 
victions and develop into a worthy member of 
society. He not only develops in the number of 
relations established, but also in the ease with 
which he reacts. Repeated actions become forged 
into habits. When we come to look at the result of 
actions as they react upon the individual agent we 
shall see the importance of this kind of develop- 
ment. He is able to establish relations by means 
of his intelligence which, on account of his moral 
promptings, may be right; and on account of the 
law of action, which by frequent repetition forges a 
habit, may be made as permanent as the actual self. 

The ability to develop is an infinite one. At no 
time in a man's history does he arrive at the point 
where he is perfectly content with his condition. 



DEVELOPMENT A LAW OF HIS BEING. 1 57 

In every cognition and in every volition he is con- 
fronted by ideals that are still beyond his power to 
realize. 

The problem of evil in the world has always 
been a difficult one. It has been one of the great 
bug-bears of speculative thought. How can evil, 
or the sense of evil, be reconciled with true good- 
ness in the heart of the universe ? The sense of 
evil arises from a feeling of dissatisfaction. 

This feeling arises when the present attainment 
does not meet the demand of the ideal. This very 
evil is a good in disguise. It is in the presence of 
ideals that man is reminded of his deficiencies. It 
is this sense of deficiency that spurs him to higher 
attainments. It is this fact that drives the scientist 
into the as yet unknown department of nature to 
make them clear to his intelligence. It is this that 
causes the artist to work and toil to make some 
creation of his art to conform to his ideal. The 
history of the world has been one continual effort 
to realize ideals present in man's essential constitu- 
tion. Evil is the discrepancy between a present 
state, or attainment, and those ideals. 

Kvil is also present on account of a failure on 
the part of the individual to realize his moral 



158 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

ideals. The moral imperative is, "Do right though 
the heavens fall." 

It is possible in the presence of conflicting 
motives to prefer a lower to a higher end. These 
ends are always valued with reference to their 
agreement, or disagreement, with moral standards. 
This preference of a lower to a higher end creates a 
discrepancy between a moral act and a moral ideal, 
or the inner voice of duty, and thus arises the con- 
sciousness of sin. 

Sin is a moral evil and is not a good in disguise, 
but is a wrong choice made by a moral agent. We 
shall learn in subsequent chapters that the ideals 
wrought into human nature were put there by the 
Absolute, who is the Creator of man and the author 
of his nature; and that a wilful violation of the 
ideals is a sin against the Absolute person. 

Man is intellectually developable; for he carries 
in him ideals that embrace the universe of being; 
and the intellect will not rest until the whole is 
mastered. 

Man's feelings are capable of being developed. 
They are the index of the value which relations 
entered into have for the sensitive self. The 
strength of feelings depends upon the strength of 
the relation, and the kind of feelings upon its nature. 



DEVELOPMENT a LAW OF HIS BEING. 1 59 

The habit of looking upon the side of the individual 
imperfections develops moroseness and melancholia. 
The feelings, if the right relations to environments 
are formed, will develop into perfect harmony with 
the Absolute; or if these relations are not formed, 
he becomes a piece of selfishness and feels himself 
forsaken of man and God. 



HIS FREEDOM. 



One of the most vexed questions of philosophy- 
is whether man is essentially free or whether he is 
determined. It was an easy matter to teach man's 
freedom in the past ages when every phenomenon in 
nature was assigned to some free agent; but when 
men began to point out that efficient causation was 
a fact in the world, natural causes were everywhere 
substituted for supernatural ones; and the idea of 
mechanism which means determination was intro- 
duced into every department of nature. So power- 
fully did this view lay hold upon men that it was 
carried into every avenue of science; and when men 
could not find a real cause for a certain event a 
hypothetical one was placed there; and it is not 
strange that to the inner actions of consciousness 
this law of determinism should be applied. It has 
been the aim of materialism to account for all 
mental phenomena, intellectual no more than voli- 
tional, by the activity of the brain alone. They say, 
we know that in sensation certain brain action 
precedes certain mental experiences; and, because 

1 60 



HIS FREEDOM. l6l 

we see no other cause for it, brain activity must be 
the sole cause for it. They notice a vast difference 
between physical and mental phenomena, and they 
call the one the inner and the other the outer side 
of the same experience. They say, because the 
inner side corresponds to the outer side and physical 
events are determined by physical causes, that the 
mental acts and habits must be likewise determined. 

Now, it is true that man is determined within 
certain limits. He is not allowed to alter, to any 
great extent, the laws of nature. They are fixed 
beyond the possibility of his interference. He must 
retain his residence upon the earth ; and all attempts 
to gratify curiosity by going elsewhere must prove 
futile. He is connected with a physical organism 
and that physical organism has a certian power and 
a certain degree of endurance, beyond which it is 
impossible to go. This indicates that the order of 
nature is established and that its plans will be real- 
ized beyond the possibility of human interference. 

But that man is nevertheless a free agent cannot 
be disputed without coming into direct antagonism 
to the data of consciousness. Herbert Spencer 
says, "Whatever persists in consciouness must be 
admitted as real." If the permanent data of con- 
sciousness are faults, man must be laboring under 



1 62 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

a delusion. We have noticed, time and again, the 
fact that in intelligence there must be a certain free- 
dom, for intelligence adapts means to ends ; where 
mechanism rules, such language would be most 
absurd. 

It is incorrect to separate the various faculties 
of man as though they were that many separate 
beings and afterward to bring them into unity. 
Though we view man as functioning in the three 
directions of intelligence, feeling and will; yet it is 
true that in every function the others are present 
also. A man's thoughts will stir up feeling. The 
feeling may drop to a minimum, and yet there is 
feeling. He cannot choose unless he has objects 
given him for choice. A choice cannot be made 
between alternatives unless they are present at the 
time in consciousness, that is, intellectually appre- 
hended. In order to make a choice between two 
objects these objects themselves must have a value 
for the chooser; and thus the intellectually grasped 
object has an influence upon the feeling; or, in 
other words, the feelings enter into the cognition of 
these objects. Neither is it possible to think with- 
out having will enter into thought ; because thoughts 
need direction. Man must, in consequence of these 
considerations, act as a unity wherever he acts. 



HIS FREEDOM. 163 

The soul is connected with a physical system 
which is mechanical in its construction. K^ery part 
is connected with every other; and the whole forms 
one organic system. The self pictures to itself cer- 
tain actions and chooses them, and the physical 
structure executes the choice. This fact has led 
materialism to say that will is but the subjective 
consciousness of a mechanical act. Just as though 
a falling stone were to say to itself, "I willed 1o 
fall;" although its fall was in every sense deter- 
mined by forces other than its own choice. 

In this discussion we must study carefully con- 
sciousness ; for it is there that we know the world 
of reality. Man as a rational creature knows him- 
self able to choose either of two different lines of 
action. He may act in conformity to his rational 
demands or he may act otherwise. No blame can 
justly be attached to an agent who is mechanically 
determined to act as he acts. An apple falls upon 
our head ; we never blame the falling apple, nor the 
tree that let it drop. They are both mechanically 
determined in bringing about the results. But it is 
not so with man; we instinctively express judgment 
upon the moral value of his act. We do not act, 
we cannot act, as though we knew these actions of 
men were determined; we rather act toward the 



164 RKUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

agent as though we knew those actions were sub- 
jectively determined. We blame them not only for 
overt acts; we blame them when they refuse to 
make the best use of their opportunities. In all of 
these judgments we attach the idea of freedom to 
their actions. Repentance is a common experience 
of men; and it is a feeling of self-reproach for 
actions which we ought not to have done, or for the 
neglect of those things which we ought to have 
done. We reprove ourselves for our wayward life; 
and we reproach ourselves also for our weakness. 
If there is such a thing as slavery to passion, we 
blame ourselves for having consented to such a con- 
dition. We are compelled to believe that we might 
have done and been otherwise. 

Mentality cannot stand without the idea of free- 
dom. Intelligence is teleological. It does not take 
means and manipulate them in order to watch results. 
The builder does not take the timber and put it to- 
gether to see what combination can be made; he 
rather adapts the timber to the end he has in view. 
His action is intelligent because it is teleological. 
He has a vision of the completed architecture, and 
adapts the means to its accomplishment. In muscu- 
lar action a man is not conscious of the individual 
muscles that come into play in the performance of a 



HIS FREEDOM. 165 

certain act. However, the act becomes an ideal in 
consciousness; and the muscular system puts forth 
an effort to realize the ideal. It may be a simple 
act, and the choice to perform it and the act itself 
may be synchronous; but there are many actions in 
which the choice so to act and the performed action 
are separated by a long course of development. The 
infant attempts to walk; the act is ideally con- 
ceived, but the muscular co-ordination is not yet 
established. The choice to perform the act domin- 
ates the whole being, until the act becomes a real- 
ity. Were it not for the free choice the act itself 
would never become an actual fact. A man has a 
desire to become a musician. There may be rea- 
sons stimulating him with this desire; but the 
reasons do not determine him to be a musician. 
The same reasons may be present with others and 
may have been present with himself at different 
times; but this thought of the desirability of being 
a musician did not determine him to be one. He, 
however, at a certain moment made the choice to 
become one; that was the beginning of his musical 
career. When he resolved to become a musician, 
he was already one in a certain sense of that term. 
It is not said that all the muscular co-ordinations 
for that end were already made. They were not, 



1 66 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

circumstances were against him, and had to be over- 
come before that end could be reached ; but he him- 
self was on the right side of the end to be accom- 
plished. He is now self-determined. He does not 
say when the combination of circumstances deter- 
mine me to become a musician then will I become 
one; he, on the contrary, recognizes himself to be 
superior to his circumstances and has perfect con- 
fidence in the end determined. He is perfectly 
confident that he can mold his circumstances, 
though they may seem to antagonize the end 
aimed for, into conformity to that end. And 
though it takes a multiplicity of muscles and com- 
plicated muscular combinations to make him what 
he desires to be; yet is he confident of his ability 
to determine himself and them and make them con- 
tribute to the result. 

Our penal institutions rest upon the basis of the 
supposition that all human actions are determined 
by the agent himself. The act though prejudicial 
in the highest degree will not make the agent cul- 
pable if the evidence point toward a want of mali- 
cious intention in the act. A criminal act may have 
been performed under severe pressure of circum- 
stances; it may have been executed by a muscular 
act; the muscular system acted in the committal 



HIS FREEDOM. 167 

according to its own laws : and 3^et back of all this 
was the self-determination that determined the mus- 
cular contraction and co-ordination toward a certain 
end set by itself. The individual does not regard 
himself to be a machine that acts only as it is acted 
upon, but rather understands himself to have 
directed his own course and to be responsible for 
his own ends. 

When a man takes a walk he does it not be- 
cause he is determined to do so, but because he 
decides upon it himself. When a man invents a 
machine he does not consider that he was driven 
by the combination of forces so to do, but he re- 
gards it as a free act of his own. 

Just as a man is able to control his muscles, 
so he is able to control his thoughts. In fact 
it is upon the control of his thoughts that his 
muscular control depends. His whole environment 
may stimulate thought in a certain direction; but 
he finding that that line of thought is not going 
to gain what he wants it to, sets himself against the 
whole trend. He does this by voluntarily thinking 
along other lines to which he is not determined by 
circumstance, but to which he is determined by his 
own self. In every choice there must be different 
alternatives. There may be present impulses to- 



1 68 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

ward the gratification of present wants springing 
from the animal nature; there may be present 
rational impulses which aim for most distant pos- 
sessions, or rewards, and gains them at a sacrifice 
of the present or immediate joys. The thoughts of 
both ends are present with the thinker. He can- 
not possibly act along both lines. The rational 
impulse may have, often does have, a more distant 
and a less vivid goal than the other; and yet he 
may choose to think the one and choose it as his 
end to the exclusion of the other. 

The same truth is illustrated in the world of 
thought. The natural line of thought for the child 
would possibly be the contemplation of its childish 
trinkets and its childish games. It may under the 
spur of a single observation decide upon becoming 
a scientist; the childish trinkets are now discarded 
as unworthy, and only such facts observed and such 
instruments employed, as will enable him to gain 
that end. By a continued effort that which once 
was difficult is now easily performed. A new 
habit of thought has been initiated by an effort of 
the self. 

It is in this individual self-determination that 
religion looks for the possiblilty of human improve- 
ment. Men who prey upon the vile elements 



HIS FREEDOM. 169 

of carnality never rise to any degree of being or use- 
fulness. Vile thoughts beget a vile character. The 
individual by choice entertaining wicked thoughts 
will soon have his whole character poisoned with its 
virus. Thoughts are the antichamber of actions; 
and no matter what may be the theory as to the 
limitations of the will, this much is established in 
every individual experience, that a man can turn 
his thoughts or his attention from one thing, or 
from one idea, to another; and whatever idea or 
thought he holds by voluntary thinking will trans- 
form his character into similarity to itself; because 
thoughts and ideas are strong motive powers in the 
course of a man's actions. By directing the trend 
of thought the individual controls his disposition. 
He may be greatly annoyed by a weakness; he 
wishes it were otherwise; his penitential feelings 
are deep: but in the moment of temptation he seems 
powerless. He now determines that it shall be 
otherwise with him. He ceases to think of the 
gratification that comes to him from the source of 
his weakness ; he thinks of the desirability of deter- 
mining himself as a man ; he thinks of manly quali- 
ties, and of the greater enjoyments that come to him 
from the consciousness of being a conqueror. He 
now realizes that that which he thought would 



170 REUGION A RATION AL DEMAND. 

require such a great conflict is easily overcome. 
He does not ascribe his victory to a more fortunate 
combination of circumstances. He knows it is not 
the resultant of co-operating forces in his environ- 
ment, but is the result of his own self-determination. 

The self is found in connection with the physical 
forces and especially in interaction with the body, 
which acts upon it; yet the self is independent; it 
may determine itself in perfect harmony with its 
environments or it may set itself into boldest antag- 
onism thereto. 

We have seen that man is a free intelligence and 
that his intelligence is truly creative; for it is 
determined in its essential action by nothing, but 
reacts upon external stimuli according to its own 
nature. We have still more the conviction that the 
will is a power of independent reaction upon the 
environment. It is this fact of independent reac- 
tion upon environment and the power of self-deter- 
mination that constitutes man pre-eminently a 
responsible being. 

It is in his power to allow himself to be ensnared 
by the things of the phenomenal universe and meet 
the disappointment of finding that they have only a 
temporary value. Or he may choose to identify 
himself with those principles which are immutable; 



HIS FREEDOM. 171 

and though his life may be one of many sacrifices 
and, though it may lead him in bold antagonism 
to his environment, he will find his life one of un- 
broken and changeless value; because he stands 
upon the immutable foundation of eternal laws. 

It is a matter of common consciousness that the 
individual himself is responsible for his character. 
Environment may have much to do by way of 
assisting, but never, except as the result of an 
effort, do we blame physical or social environment, 
but throw the whole responsibility upon the in- 
dividual himself. This power of self-determination 
enables the indi\ idual to employ the most violent 
opposition and make it the most forceful factor in 
the realization of himself. 

This freedom has a great bearing upon man as 
a religious being. Necessitarianism would make 
him the mechanical outcome of a system, which he 
would be unable in the slightest manner to modify. 
His volitions are but the consciousness of necessary 
actions, actions controlled by circumstances beyond 
his reach. 

Such a view would impugn the belief that man 
is religious. For man to be mechanically related 
to the universe, or to God, would be no more than 
the blade of grass or the leaf; for they are mechani- 



172 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

cally determined to be what they are. Religion is 
not a mechanical relation of the individual to God 
for such a relation to Him is sustained by the most 
insignificant part of his workmanship. It is this 
entrance of the power of self-determination, the 
power of self -direction, against the opposing ele- 
ments of the phenomenal world that give man a 
value far outweighing in importance the most stu- 
pendous phenomena of nature. 

It is in the consciousness of a self-determination 
that lies the possibility of being at variance with 
the nature of things and consequently in opposition 
to Him who is the Creator of all. It opens up to man 
the possibility of glad self-surrender to the Author 
of his being, and thereby have the consciousness of 
affectionate and blessed allegiance to Him. 

Freedom does not mean uncaused action; but it 
means self-caused action. It means a life not solely 
determined by circumstances or environments, but 
a life determined by rational intelligence. Nothing 
can be credited with intelligence that is determined 
to act as it does. The most skillful work of man's 
hand would be no more credit to the workman than 
the orderly arrangement of the leaf is to the leaf 
itself. Every particle of the leaf is arranged into 
an order which, though indeed the result of intelli- 



HIS FREEDOM. 173 

gence, is not the result of the intelligence of the 
leaf, but of the author of the mechanical system of 
which the leaf is a part. Of man we speak differ- 
ently. The works of his hands betray the same 
kind of intelligence; but the intelligence is referred 
to a different cause than is the leaf. Man himself 
is the cause ; and the intelligence betrayed in his 
work is his intelligence. 

This manner of speach is consistent only on the 
supposition of freedom in man. His self-determin- 
ation brings with it his responsibility. It makes 
him the author of his own relation to nature and to 
his God; and it is this fact which constitutes him 
religious. Because we are so near to it I will ven- 
ture a definition of religion. Religion is the right 
relation of the free moral agent to his God. Of 
course it is understood that the adjective right is 
not to be construed in the absolute sense for that 
would prevent any finite creature from being re- 
ligious. 



THE NATURE OF HIS DEVELOPMENT. 



If we ask ourselves the question, why do things 
develop, we would be unable to find a reply. The 
question is as hopeless as is the question why was 
nature created at all. Why was nature created at 
all, and why was it created as it is are questions, 
which must be referred to infinite w T isdom for a 
solution. Our chief concern is to know it as it is. 

The process of nature is a process of develop- 
ment. The living organism makes its first appear- 
ance in the form of a microscopic cell. Its power 
to dominate matter is exceedingly small; but it 
carries in it the impulse to subdue and to dominate 
by its own peculiar nature. The cell absorbs 
through its walls into itself the nourishment sup- 
plied by its environments. It thereby increases its 
contents until it divides; and each daughter cell re- 
peats the history of the mother cell. Thus the 
individual organism increases in size and strength 
until it reaches its maturity. Human development 
begins with physical development. The organs of 
sense and motion are developed by the organization 

174 



THE NATURE OE HIS DEVELOPMENT. 1 75 

of unorganized matter absorbed for that purpose. 
The eye is formed long before it can see; but there 
lies in it capsulate the power of sight. The hands 
are formed, but they have not the ability to handle, 
though their structure indicates their purpose. The 
lungs are made for the aeriation of the Hood long 
before they can receive the oxygen of the air. The 
nervous system was formed for the co-ordination of 
the different members of the organism into a unity. 
The organism is not intended to act until the proper 
stimulus for action is given; and then it often takes 
quite an effort to establish a proper adaptation. 
The eye is receptive of the light; but it takes a 
certain adjustment to see things properly. The 
child's hand is perfectly adapted for grasping 
things; and yet it requires a certain amount of 
effort to do ii properly. The muscles must, adapt 
themselves fo their environment; but they only 
learn after considerable experimentation to over- 
come the law of gravitation. 

But we have seen that man is essentially spirit- 
ual and that the development of physical organs is 
not the chief purpose of his being, or of his develop- 
ment. It is to the credit of science to agree with 
revelation that the nature of development is first 
physical then spiritual. It is one of the points made 



176 REUGION A RATION At DEMAND. 

by the theory of evolution, that after the physical 
organism was perfected then the course of develop- 
ment took a spiritual turn. Science has proven that 
the eye was not constructed for itself, but for the 
greater end of sight. The eye does not improve by 
seeirjg but it finlly wanes and refuses to serve at all. 
It is precisely so with the other members of the 
body. They all point to a use beyond themselves. 
Their chief aim is to awaken spiritual energy and 
when that is done they begin gradually to recede 
into inactivity and give themselves over to death. 
These facts indicate strongly that the permanent 
nature of progress is not physical, but spiritual. 
The physical is but the revelation of the spiritual, 
which is present in every speck of the phenomenal 
world. The phenomenal world is a system of signs 
from which man spells the meaning of eternal 
thought. 

Human development is individual, He is not 
carried along by the mechanism of the universe. 
He is rather a being determined to activity by his 
own essential nature and volition. He grows by 
adapting himself to his environments. Physical 
growth consists in causing the elements of nature 
to become organized into the living tissue of organic 
forms. 



THE NATURE OF HIS DEVELOPMENT. 1 77 

Iyife must have access to those elements of its 
environment. Man stands in such a position, and 
is so related to the world, that his physical wants 
are met in such a way that physical development 
may take place. He is also related to the world 
that his intellectual and moral nature may find their 
correlates for proper growth. No part of an 
organism grows of itself. It is only as it stands in 
perfect relation to the correlated part of its environ- 
ment that it grows. The cell that constitutes the 
beginning of its being does not develop the organism 
from itself; it must stand in vital relation to the 
material world in order to guarantee a proper inflow 
of the necessary elements. All appetites aim to 
establish relations between the individual and some 
part of his environment. The reaction of the self 
upon the appetites gives the self its character. All 
self-assertion is essentially free and determines the 
nature of the self and of its growth. When a man 
directs his attention to physical self-preservation 
alone he becomes worldly minded. His whole self 
is then alive to the material nature. He finds his 
joy and delight in material prosperity and remains 
blind to everything else. The accumulation of 
wealth seems to be the chief desideratum of such a 
being. He grows strong by specialization, but a 



I78 KEXIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

strong attachment to one part of the environment 
often means atrophied relation to others. He has 
a natural impulse for pleasure and that springs from 
some part of his animal nature. A constant atten- 
tion to this end of life makes him animal. Man's 
essential growth is always along the lines of his 
activity. While giving due regard to these parts of 
his environment he may reach out and form rela- 
tions with other parts. The miser is blind to a 
world of beauty; the fleecy cloud, the studded 
meadows, heaven's canopy decked with a million 
stars are all beyond the reach of his vision. There 
is beauty of environment; but he sees it not. He 
has had a growth but not in this direction. He has 
cut down his environment to the one point of con- 
tact and that is wealth. Growth in love for the 
beautiful takes place when the individual voluntar- 
ily turns his attention to that part of his environ- 
ment. The botanist sees beauty in a flower con- 
cealed to the ordinary observer; because he has 
turned his attention to this part of his environment 
so long. Voluntary adaptation to the beautiful 
means a stimulation of taste and a conquest of its 
principles. As the physical world ministers to 
the physical wants of the individual, so the 
beautiful ministers to his aesthetic wants. Growth 



THE NATURE OF HIS DEVELOPMENT. 179 

means a stimulation of want and a furnishing 
of supplies. The supply in the aesthetic world 
is infinitely greater than any taste has yet been 
able to appreciate. According to the strength of 
the adaptation is the want; and according to the 
want is the supply. 

Man's environment also contains a world of 
thought. ''The material world is a living thinking 
thing ("See Lloyd's Dynamic Idealism" p. 36.) 
Every atom stands in intelligent relation to some 
other atoms. Every grain of sand sustains a rela- 
tion to other grains of sand and to the earth that is 
transparent to thought. Every planet stands in a 
relation to the planetary system that mathematics, 
the most highly of all intellectual sciences, can 
describe. Intelligence is a universal characteristic 
of all nature. This part of man's environment is 
open to him. Man grows intellectually by adapting 
himself to truth. He must carefully observe the 
facts of nature and by voluntary attention he grows 
into accuracy of observation. A relation is thus 
established between the observer and the things 
observed. The facts of observation must be care- 
fully considered and mentally digested. It requires 
thinking to develop power and accuracy of thought. 
The world of thought like the world of beauty is 



l8o RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

inexhaustible; and when men by deep penetration 
have gained possession of some part of it, other 
parts immediately burst into view. L,ike the Amer- 
ican continent hid from the knowledge of men until 
Christopher Columbus took from its face the veil, 
so the unlimited world of truth is waiting to yield 
its limitless possessions to the diligent student. The 
world of truth is a world of thought; and a world 
of thought exists for the thinker. The progress of 
man indicates that there is no phase of thought to 
which man is not related. The principles of science, 
that at one time taxed the philosophers to their 
utmost capacity and were then considered a special 
bequest to the specially gifted are now the posses- 
sions of every schoolboy. The profoundest princi- 
ples are the simplest truths when mastered. 

This indicates the goal of man's development. 
In physical development the ideal of his growth is 
limited. When a certain amount of the physical 
environment has been absorbed and assimilated 
absorption ceases to cause expansion. With man's 
intellectual nature it is diametrically different. An 
expansion through absorption into infinity is its 
goal. Comprehension of truth never limits itself; 
but every fact and principle comprehended is both 
an incentive to comprehend others still beyond, and 



THE NATURE OF HIS DEVELOPMENT. l8l 

is an increased ability to comprehend it. Thus we 
arrive at one of the fundamental truths of this 
work, that man's rational nature contains the ele- 
ment of absoluteness in itself. This rational nature 
is not content with the simple mastery of a few 
facts, but aims to comprehend the universal world 
of truth. The individual does not develop himself; 
he simply adapts himself to the truth and the ab- 
sorption of truth causes him to expand. 

Man's environment contains also a moral and a 
spiritual element; and as thought is present in all 
physical elements, but infinitely transcends it, so 
the moral and spiritual elements are present in all 
thought and are themselves absolute; because they 
must be regarded as the will of the Absolute Per- 
son, God. Man grows into similarity to the truth 
by adapting himself to it, never by adapting truth 
to his own selfish inclination. In like manner man 
becomes moral and spiritual by adapting himself 
to moral and spiritual law, or rather to the God. 
The rational ideal is to comprehend absolute truth. 
The moral and spiritual is the assurance of absolute 
Tightness and the approval of the person upon whom 
all moral and spiritual laws depend. Submission to 
truth is the sure road to intellectual victory. Sub- 
mission to moral and spiritual principles, or rather 



1 82 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

to the person himself guarantees spiritual and moral 
triumph. 

The growth of man's essential nature is like 
growth in the animal and vegetable kingdoms; it is 
a start from that which is imperceptibly small to 
the full realization of the contained ideal. In the 
animal and vegetable kingdoms the ideal is a certain 
stature which when reached refused to admit of any 
further development. In the intellectual and moral 
realm the ideal is infinity. The rational impulse is 
satisfied with nothing short of comprehending ail 
truth and a perfect mastery of all principles. The 
proper attitude, which the individual may volun- 
tarily take, to truth is a guarantee of attaining the 
ideal. The inflowing truth will expand the rational 
nature into a complete comprehension of itself. 
The moral ideal is a perfect submission to, and the 
affectionate approval of, the Author of the moral 
universe, or of God. Submission to the moral 
order makes love perceptible in the environment. 
Perception of love stimulates love in the perceiving 
soul; and the individual beholds himself standing 
in the relation of Sonship to the Absolute Person. 

It is the nature of growth to become like Him; 
to think what He thinks, to will what He wills. It 
is a stimulus to growth to look out upon the world 



THE NATURE OF HIS DEVELOPMENT. 1 83 

of varied phenomena; to see wisdom displayed in 
all its parts ; to look out into the limitless expanse 
of the heavens and to number the multitude of 
worlds; to think of Him who comprehends the in- 
finite multiplicity of the world of phenomena in the 
unity of His own being ; to read Him in the depth 
of the moral law, which never makes any conces- 
sions to sin; and to hear the voice coming along 
through the avenues of science as well as from the 
lips of inspiration saying: "Be ye therefore perfect 
even as your father in heaven is perfect." In all 
growth the individual but takes the attitude and a 
power not his own does the work. 

The ideal of growth embraces the conquest of 
all truth; so that truth is useful and active in the 
service of man. It embraces a growth commen- 
surate with the growth of knowledge. It em- 
braces a growth in freedom until the individual 
has perfect victory over every wit of opposition. 
It embraces growth in oneness, not a loss of in- 
dividuality, but a growth of personality into 
similarity to the Absolute Person Himself. The 
method is absorption. The condition is adaptation. 
The ideal is universality. When man, spurred by 
his rational impulse, has comprehended the princi- 
ples of truth, of beauty, and of righteousness, in 



1 84 RKIJGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

fact all the attributes of God; and, spurred on by 
his unconditional sense of thought, has taken these 
qualities into his own character to the extent that 
he conceives them; then is he on the perfect way 
toward the realization of himself. 



HIS TRUE DIGNITY. 



All animal life begins with cell life. It has 
indeed an insignificant beginning, but it has the 
power of laying hold upon surrounding material 
and of organizing it into a living organism. The 
first activity of life concerns itself most particularly 
with the perfection of the body. The early infant 
life is an animal life. The appetites are of an ani- 
mal nature. No instinct of a higher order seems 
present in the action of the child. The organic 
builder directs his attention to one organ after 
another until the whole organism is complete. The 
eye seems at first attracted by the light, and the 
power of vision is the result. The hand begins to 
make an effort at handling things, and the power of 
prehension is the result. Then it directs its atten- 
tion to the act of walking and the power of locomo- 
tion is the outcome. After the individual has suc- 
ceeded in forming these adaptations, desires of a 
higher order are awakened. They take a spiritual 
turn. Nature, in her whole story of life, points 
from a vegetative to a higher purpose. 
185 



1 86 R^UGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

In the early history of the individual the organs 
for observation are the most active. The desire 
for making observations absorbs the whole attention 
of the child. It does not see anything else to live 
for. After a time the objects observed become 
familiar and the desire for observation wanes, more 
or less, to give opportunity to another order of 
activity. This other kind of activity is reflection. 
The gleaning of facts comes first; the assimila- 
tion of truth comes afterwards. 

The maturity of a material frame is not the ulti- 
matum. The body with its organs is only the 
instrument for experimentation; but the experi- 
menter is distinct from the instrument. The pur- 
pose of the experimentation is not the purpose of 
the instrument, but the information of the experi- 
menting self. 

The worth of anything is determined by that 
which it can do. Considering man from the stand- 
point of physical accomlpishments he is compelled 
to take a subordinate position. He has not the 
acute vision of an eagle, nor the olfactory sense of 
a dog, nor the fineness of feeling of an ant. He 
has not the fleetness of a greyhound, nor the 
strength of a lion. His strength estimated in terms 
of phenomenal forces is insignificant. A slight 



HIS TRUE DIGNITY. 1 87 

maladaptation to the gravitative force, a little piece 
of foreign matter between the parts of his own 
body, a little clot of blood in. the brain, a little flash 
of electricity, and his physical strength is gone. If 
man's strength is so insignificant, what is there 
about him that the forest should bow at his com- 
mand; that the rocks and the mountains should 
open up before him; that the lightning should 
swing into obedience to his orders. Wherein lies 
his dignity ? Wherein is his worth ? It is not by 
sheer brute force that he makes his accomplish- 
ment, but it is by the fact that he understands the 
forces and principles of nature, and can make them 
bend according to the dictate of his will. He takes 
advantage of the power of chemism and blasts the 
rocks from the quarry. He takes advantage of the 
fact that water under the influence of heat expands, . 
and he makes the steam engine carry his loads and 
drive his machinery. He understands the difference 
of hardness of different substances, and so makes 
one kind of material cut and shape another. He 
understands the difference of strength of different 
forces and thus is enabled to have one force over- 
come another. It is in this intellect of man that 
we begin to see traces of his dignity. 

The flower planted in the meadow is an entity. 



1 88 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

It contains unformed matter, formed matter and a 
formative principle. The formative principle is able 
to put up the form. The completed form is an 
expression of beauty and perfection. But how does 
the flower stand in relation to the rest of nature ? 
It is connected with the soil by its roots and rootlets 
Its relation to the soil is determined by the length 
of its roots. It stands in relation to the air and 
sunlight by means of its leaves and stalk. It is put 
there by no choice of its own. It is mechanically 
determined in its relation to the soil, the air and the 
sunlight. It has no outlook beyond the reach of its 
roots, its leaves and its petals. 

An animal is an organism of a higher order than 
the plant. Its relation to its environment is not 
quite so mechanically determined. By means of its 
organs of locomotion it can change this relation. 
With its organs of sense it is able to reach out 
further for experience than the plant is able to do. 
Its organs of sight puts it in relation to objects, at 
quite a distance from the organism itself. Its sense 
of hearing puts it in relation to dangers, before they 
come in contact with the organism itself. With its 
sense of smell it is made aware of nourishment 
beyond the reach of its prehensile organs. The 
environment of the animal has a much greater 



HIS TRUE DIGNITY. 1 89 

radius than has the environment of the plant. And 
yet the animal is limited to the range of the present 
activity of the organs of sense. The animal does 
not reflect upon its past memories; nor does it pro- 
ject its past experience into the future. Its intelli- 
gence is entirely determined by its temporary excita- 
tions. When the animal's physical needs are grati- 
fied, it thinks no further. 

The extent of its relations determine the dignity 
of the animal. When thus measured man is an 
organism most unique. Who can find limitations 
to his environment ? He penetrates the earth and 
understands the strata of rocks, and ascertains the 
history of the earth for millenniums. Though the 
size of the earth is great beyond the power of 
imagination correctly to present; yet for thought it 
is the merest toy. Though the earth's core is for- 
ever hid from the power of human vision; yet it is 
perfectly lucid to his rational nature. The ideas 
of causation, of space and of time, the laws of gravi- 
tation and the impenetrability of matter must hold 
good in the center of the earth, as well as within 
the reach of the organs of sense and the power of 
material tests. 

The principles of human reason carry man back 
to the very beginning of the phenomenal world. 



190 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

No time can force limitation upon it. By watching 
the present movements of things and their laws of 
action he becomes a prophet and projects the future 
history of the globe. Man's enviroments are infi- 
nite. There is no limitation found for them. Man 
is related to the universe and most particularly to 
the thought and truth expressed in the universe. 
The phenomena are for him not ends of thought but 
avenues that lead him back to the real nature of 
reality, to the Infinite Person Himself. 

The dignity of man's intelligence does not con- 
sist in the fabrication of ideas, or in the concoction 
of imagination ; its aim is higher. Physical life 
does not manufacture the material for its growth. 
It does not manufacture; it assimilates and organ- 
izes. Every element taken into the organism exerts 
the same forces inside that it does outside. Men- 
tal life does not create the material upon which it 
subsists. It finds the truths of nature unchange- 
able; but by adapting itself to them, it conquers 
them into its service. Man's intelligence does not 
create, it only discovers. It is possible only imper- 
fectly to discover, and thus to have a distorted view 
of things. It is the natural aim of intelligence to 
understand truth as it is. To know things accur- 
ately is to know them as they were made to be. 



HIS TRUE DIGNITY. 191 

The effect always reveals the nature of the cause. 
So the nature of things and of their laws reveal their 
Author. Human thought when correct only repro- 
duces di\ ine thought. God's intelligence is the pro- 
totype of human intelligence. The ideal of human 
reason is divine reason. And along the line of 
approximation to this ideal lies the dignity of man 
as an intelligent being. 

The true dignity of human intelligence does not 
consist in mastering the bulk of modern literature, 
but in mastering the truth. 

Man possesses self-determination, and this fact 
gives him a certain dignity. The storm cloud creep- 
ing up the western heaven is a wonderful phenom- 
ena. It throws its hugh form across the heavens 
and eclipses the brightness of the sun; its lightning 
flashes with fury and the thunder rolls with a deep 
and heavy roar; water falls upon the earth in great 
abundance; and the mighty wind causes the forest 
trees to bow before it. This is a most awe inspir- 
ing scene. But there is not a change in the current 
of air, nor an electric spark, nor a drop of water but 
was completely determined by adequate causes. No 
one thinks of having redress for destruction of pro- 
perty or for loss of life caused by it. Not a single 



I92 REUGION A RATION AL DEMAND. 

movement in that storm was caused by self-deter- 
mination. 

The astronomer's telescope and the measuring 
line bring out Jupiter as a stupendous body with an 
irresistable momentum. But Jupiter is under the 
sway of a mechanical order; there is no self-deter- 
mination about him. He cannot will to be anything 
but a planet, nor direct his course otherwise than 
determined by forces beyond his control. 

It is otherwise with man. As a rational crea- 
ture he has the power of self -adaptation. Man in his 
ability to resist certain influences and of increasing 
the efficiency of others is a creator; and in his 
creative energy lies his dignity and his worth. It 
is in this respect that the rocks and the mountains 
and the worlds are no match for him. 

The true dignity of the will does not lie in self- 
willedness. Such a disposition would be as unsatis- 
factory for the will as fiction would be for reason. 
As reason finds the true lines of its activity in the 
universal reason, so the will of man finds its legiti- 
mate sphere in submission to the universal will, or 
the will of God. His true dignity does not consist 
in the sacrifice of volition, but in its exercise along 
imperishable lines. God's sovereignity is absolute. 



HIS TRUE DIGNITY. 1 93 

The inanimate world is in every respect obedient to 
his law and order. Animals are unerringly gov- 
erned by their instincts. God's will is sovereign 
for man. His will is unerring for it is the expres- 
sion of absolute reason. Man's will must be in per- 
fect accord with his ability to comprehend eternal 
truth. Man's dignity therefore, consists in his fidel- 
ity to his highest convictions. 

It is the goal of theoretical reason to see God, 
and the aim of practical reason to become like God. 



HIS IMMORTALITY. 



Is there value to be found in man ? Is there 
value to be found in anything ? The question of 
value and purpose are questions which irresistibly 
force themselves upon man. Is man one among the 
phenomena of nature ? Has man a relative or an 
absolute value ? It is man's rational conviction that 
somewhere an intelligent answer can be found for 
these ever intruding questions. We do not wish to 
be unterstood that we here attempt a demonstration 
of man's immortality; we simply recognize the fact 
that it has been the rational conviction of the race, 
and wish, in brief, to point out wherein lies the 
ground of such conviction. 

If metaphysics has been able to point out any- 
thing, it is this fact that the soul is not a phenom- 
enon like other phenomena. Phenomena are facts 
of the natural world accounted for by other facts. 
They are joined together by the universal law of 
cause and effect; and as the cause changes the effect 
changes also. Thus there is no permanency guar- 
anteed the individual phenomena. Metaphysics 

194 



HIS IMMORTALITY. 1 95 

clearly points out that phenomena are facts of con- 
sciousness, and that they come and go in conscious- 
ness. It would be impossible to recognize change 
if there was not something permanent to measure 
change by. The water would not appear to flow if 
there were not a change of relation between it and 
the shore. The moving hand of a watch indicates 
time because it moves upon a dial that is stationary. 
Phenomena change with reference to one another, 
but most particularly with reference to conscious- 
ness. In consciousness the experiences of life are 
all gathered up into the unity of a consciousness. 
The individual content is not the most important 
thing, but the consciousness that has the content. 
To say that all phenomena are changeable is not to 
say that consciousness, which alone makes phenom- 
ena possible, is changeable. 

Facts appear in and again disappear from con- 
sciousness; and this is made possible only by the 
fact that consciousness persists throughout the 
change. The changeable phenomena does not prove 
that the consiocusness for which the change occurs 
does itself change. 

The body does not constitute the essential man. 
The assential man is the soul. The body belongs 
to the phenomenal world. It is the settled convic- 



196 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

tion of science that the brain is the organ with 
which man comes in contact with the phenomenal 
world. The soul is not the result of organization; 
for it is the only condition under which organiza- 
tion could take place. Organization can take place 
only among the elements of consciousness. Nature 
does not evolve mind, for mind must precede the 
conception of nature. The world is a world of 
experience, and is possible onty for a consciousness 
that can have experience. The whole trend of 
epistemology indicates this priority of consciousness. 

It is a law of consciousness that it must have 
change in order to act. It does recognize itself to 
be the same while it recognizes a change in its con- 
tents; and in order to be stirred to activity it must 
have a change in it contents. A musical note con- 
tinually sounded would soon cease to be noticed at 
all. If it were affected by the same color continu- 
ally, it would soon cease to recognize color at all. 

For its highest activity a continual change of 
its state is necessary. While its states are continu- 
ally chanigng, it carries with it its past states in 
the form of memory and is enriched by them. The 
legitimate conclusion therefore is, that the chang- 
ing phenomenal world is not antagonistic to the 
continuity of consciousness, or of the self; but that 



HIS IMMORTALITY. 1 97 

it takes phenomenal change to give the conscious 
self its fullest expression. Though there is a con- 
tinual change in the phenomenal world, a continual 
change in the states of consciousness, there is, 
nevertheless, the conviction of the permanency of 
the conscious self. Though the cells of the brain 
and the nerves are continually changing, conscious- 
ness recognizes its own identity, superior to all 
change or physical conditions. 

The brain is the last link of physical action influ- 
encing the mind, or the self. It transforms the 
energy of the outside world into such shapes that 
the self can react upon it. The actual reaction 
upon this stimuli is not made by the molecular 
motion of the brain itself. Conception, representa- 
tion, recollection and comparison are purely mental 
acts, and cannot be accounted for by any physical 
process. While the soul stands in relation to the 
body and reacts upon stimuli, it does not prove 
that the soul depends for its existence upon the 
exitence of any part, or the whole, of the body. 

The previous line of thought is only negative 
and can at best only silence attacks from the mater- 
ialistic assailants of immortality. Consciousness is 
not the outgrowth of the relations of phenomenal 
elements to another. Relations themselves are held 



I98 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

by the conscious self. Consciousness is the prin- 
cipal thing; all else exists for it and in it. 

When reason seeks an answer to the question, 
"What is there valuable in the cosmic order," it is 
irresistibly driven back to the conscious self, as the 
supreme fact of this order for a reply. The mineral 
kingdom does not find its value in itself. The earth, 
the air and the water appear valueless when they 
stand alone; but a special value attaches them as 
soon as the vegetable life appears ; for the vegetable 
life would have no being, were it not for the exist- 
ence of the mineral kingdom. When the elements 
of the mineral kingdom are woven together into 
the structures of organic forms, they begin to show 
signs of worth. Their value lies in something be- 
yond themselves. When we approach the vegetable 
kingdom with the same question, we meet with the 
same difficulty; and the answer must be sought in 
the same direction. When we ask, why do the 
blades of grass grow ? why do the trees shoot forth 
their buds ? why do the flowers bloom ? we almost 
feel at first as though these also were hopeless ques- 
tions. The grass blade whithers, and the blossoms 
fade, and are no more. In itself the vegetable king- 
dom furnishes no reply to the great questions; but 
when we look beyond the vegetable kingdom to that 



HIS IMMORTAUfY. 1 99 

which it exists for, we begin to see signs o_ coming 
answers to these questions. But no sooner do we 
find a value in the animal kingdom for the vegetable, 
than the question arises what value is there in the 
animal kingdom. Why should an animal organism 
spring into existence, and again go out of it ? Why 
should an organism be created, only to be dissolved ? 
The whole animal kingdom breaks down under 
these questions. The only answer we can find is 
in the service rendered man. But man's physical 
being has itself no element of permanent value in 
it; for it comes into existence only again to be taken 
by the unsympathetic hand of dissolution. It is 
only when reason falls back upon consciousness, 
that carries in itself the elements of permanency 
while it feasts upon the everchanging world of phe- 
nomena, that it finds the truly permanent. 

Why the changing cycles of the seasons ? The 
Springtime comes; the bosom of the earth is opened ; 
its fertility gives forth grass and flowers. These 
things grow; reach their maturity; and again are 
made to disappear. The water evaporates from the 
face of the earth; it floats upon the wings of the 
wind; it is soon condensed and falls in the form of 
rain to the earth. Under its influence the earth 
grows moist; and under the influence of this mois- 



200 RKLIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

ture it proves itself fertile in the production of grass 
and buds and flowers. The growth of the grass and 
the trees and the flowers indicate the value of the 
showers. The growing vegetation gives a certain 
permanency to the value of the rain and dew. But 
the grass and the flowers and the trees soon whither 
and decay ; the rain is evaporated and the same con- 
dition prevails that existed before all this was passed 
through. By means of these changes not a single 
element is added to nature. Nature has not been 
enriched by a single atom. Atoms have only 
changed their relation to one another, but they 
again revert to their former state. Nature's 
changes are valuless for herself ; but they are valu- 
able for a changeless observer and that observer is 
consciousness. Every change in the phenomenal 
world gives it a new state; and every state is a new 
possession; and every possession is a stimulus to a 
new growth. Every change in the phenomenal 
world is therefore an agency to push on essential 
man to the completeness of his being in the realiza- 
tion of his ideals. The conscious self is the last 
thing we can look to for an answer. Everything 
else has failed to satisfy reason in its reasonable 
demands for an answer. Here we must find it if we 
find it at all. And all physical science begins to 



HIS IMMORTALITY. 201 

show that here we have the right to look for a 
reply. The whole phenomenal world of change 
would be a worthless, valueless play of forces, pur- 
poseless if the conscions self did not continue to 
exist. Science points out that it abides amid the 
everchanging phenomena of nature. It survives 
the change of a varied experience. It survives the 
changes in various stages of its own history, and 
continues an unbroken life of progress throughout 
all these changes. It survives the everchanging 
cells of the brain and, in fact, of the whole body. 
If it survives all these changes that we have experi- 
enced, why may it not survive the changes in 
which we have no experience as yet. 

It is quite certainthat the brain is composed of a 
collection of sensory and motor centers. Their pur- 
pose is to put the self in a vital relation to the out- 
side world. Physiological psychology points strongly 
in direction of a proof that after the self has a few 
ideas, which are formed from sensations which arose 
in the sensory centers from stimuli carried to them; 
the self is able to retain and meditate upon these 
ideas even after the centers themselves have been 
destroyed by disease, or otherwise. These revela- 
tions, made by a science growing in importance, 
point out the conclusion, that the material body is 



202 RKUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

but the scaffold by the aid of which man mounts to 
the higher realm of being, and when the essential 
man has been led through the changes of the phe- 
nomenal world to the contemplation of truth as it is 
in itself, the material body becomes unnecessary and 
the spiritualized self continues without its assistance. 
The spiritualized self stands in relation to eternal 
truth, and finds in that truth the permanent condi- 
tion for its states of activity. 



SUSCEPTIBILITY OF PLEASURE AND 
PAIN. 



Man is a rational and volitional being, but no 
less is he sensible. Feeling is an essential part of 
his being. We are not now concerned with that 
sensation that gives us perception of a certain con_ 
tent, but that experience which furnishes him states 
of pleasure and pain. 

The soul is so constituted that the three func- 
tions exercise themselves together. No thought 
can be so pure that it has not some value for the 
conscious self, and, consequently, some stimulating 
power upon volition. It is a fairly well established 
hypothesis, that feelings are a token of agreement, 
or want of agreement, between the relations we 
stand in to our environments. A pleasurable feel- 
ing always indicates the healthy and healthful action 
of the system under the excitation. 

Feeling is beyond the immediate control of the 

individual. As little as he can prevent himself from 

seeing color when his eyes are open to the light, so 

little can he prevent himself from having states of 

203 



204 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

feeling; and yet the particular states of his feelings 
are, within certain limits under his control. He 
can turn his eye from one object to another, and 
thus be impressed with the color peculiar to that 
object. The state of feeling is in like manner deter- 
mined by the direction of the attention. 

There are different kinds of feeling according to 
the different causes giving them origin. There are 
feelings of sense; they are begotten out of sense 
impressions. The presence of some colors arouse 
pleasant feelings; while others arouse such as are 
most unpleasant. Certain combinations of sounds 
are pleasant; while others are again unpleasant. 
The former seems to bring the whole nervous sys- 
tem into healthy action; while the other seems to 
shock it. A sudden light, or a discord, sets the 
whole nervous system on edge. With taste and 
smell feelings are also associated. 

The feelings call into being certain ideals, and 
prompt to their realization. If an agreeable feeling 
arises on account of the contemplation of some com- 
bination of colors, man's aesthetical nature urges 
him to make the combination and even to improve 
upon them, that the agreeable feelings may thereby 
be increased. It is feeling that urges on to the con- 
ception of ideals beyond any present attainment. 



SUSCEPTIBILITY OF PLKASURK AND PAIN. 205 

Man experiences also the feeling of self-con- 
sciousness. It is thus that he distinguish himself 
from the rest of the world, and attaches certain 
value to himself. Our states are discriminated from 
the states of every other being, in their ability to 
affect us do we see the value of other things. A 
piece of money has value because it has the power 
of awakening agreeable experiences. A flower has 
value for the same reason. A special and greater 
value is attached to the self, for it is the subject of 
those states. According to the object will be the 
feeling engendered by its contemplation. The state 
of the self determines the strength and kind of feel- 
ings awakened in it. A worthy self is an object 
most agreeable to contemplate; a worthless self is 
an object of misery and woe. 

This consciousness carries with it a true ideal of 
self-hood. It stimulates to that state of being which 
gives rise to the purest, noblest and most perma- 
nent feelings. This point we will consider more 
fully when we consider the relations of the ideals to 
pleasure and pain, or blessedness and woe. 

Feelings are connected with every function of 
our being. We take an interest in truth. An insati- 
able desire lays hold upon us to penetrate into the 
hidden parts of nature. This desire to know is 



2o6 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

irresistible in the man of science, who stoops over 
his retort to see some peculiar action of chemical 
agents; or who adjusting the lenses of his micro- 
scope that he may see the beauty and truth revealed 
in nature's minutia; or the street gossip going from 
house to house in order to find the latest develop- 
ments of social communication. The intelligence of 
man carries with it its own ideals. In fact every 
line of mental activity carries with it ideals, which 
urge on to higher attainments. This fact accounts 
for the progress of the world. Were there no ideals 
of invention ahead of those already realized, prog- 
ress in invention would soon cease. Were the ideals 
of a scientist not ahead of that which he has 
already realized, he would not spend his valuable 
time and energy in his work of experimentation. 
The fact that these ideals are found in our nature 
makes it a fact, that the contemplation of our states 
awaken feelings of blessedness or woe. 

Special mention in this connection must be made 
of the moral element in our physical constitution. 
It is not a segment of our being; for it is connected 
with every action of body and spirit. It shares the 
qualities of the rational nature also, in the fact that 
it has the twofold attribution of perception and feel- 
ing. All the faculties have their ideals, ideals of 



SUSCEPTIBILITY OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. 207 

their proper action at any instant, and ideals toward 
which they tend to develop. I must repeat that all 
mental life has this ideal element in it ; for without 
it, it would be a stagnant pool swallowed up by the 
filth of its own inactivity. This ideal urges the 
whole man on to a perfection not found in himself; 
for it passes on beyond his attainments. It is not a 
perfection found in the phenomenal world; for the 
phenomenal world must often be changed in order 
to give him opportunity to realize it. The paints 
put upon articles of merchandise are put there in 
order to realize an ideal not found in nature. The 
piano is not a natural construction, but it is artifi- 
cial; it is an attempt to realize an ideal in the musi- 
cal realm. The ideals, though they desire to express 
themselves in phenomenal forms, have their home 
in the Absolute; and these ideals are but faint 
visions of Him. 

Practically reason holds in constant view the 
ideals in human action. The individual things in 
the cosmos are parts of a mechanism. They stand 
in the relation of a mechanical necessity to their 
environment. The ground for their being explains 
every part of them. With man it is otherwise. 
His environment is the universe, and He who 
reveals himself in it. His ideal is the Infinite. 



2o8 RBIJGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

The laws of infinite thought are the laws of his 
mental life. Though these ideals may but imper- 
fectly represent him ; though the glimpses of vision 
are but through a glass darkly : the direction they 
are moving indicates the goal. The end toward 
which the ideals lead is oneness with God. 

In the individual action, practical reason makes 
a comparison of the individual act with the ideal 
and passes judgment upon their conformity, or non- 
conformity. So that, in fact, the life of the indi- 
vidual is looked at from the standpoint of the perfect 
ideal. Conscience is not a separate entity with a 
judgment of its own , it takes for its guiding star the 
ideals of the whole mental life, and, taking them as 
its standard, measures the value of individual acts. 
The intellectual ideal carries with it an impulse for 
the constant expansion of knowledge and thought. 
The aesthetic nature has an impulse which pushes it 
beyond present attainments in art to the material- 
ization of better forms. The practical reason has 
not only its ideal, which is conformity of the entire 
life with the highest conceptions of righteousness; 
but its action is accompanied with an unconditional 
''ought." This ought is not the voice of expedi- 
ency, though obedience to it is in the highest sense 
expedient. To be faithful to the cosmic order is 



SUSCEPTIBILITY OF PlyKASURK AND PAIN. 209 

not only advantageous to the whole order but in a 
special manner to the individual part. An organ 
in an organism meets its best service, and is of the 
utmost value, when it acts in conformity with the 
whole order. But the moral nature has an impera- 
tive that comes to him with more than individual 
authority. It is more than mere cosmic harmony. 
It is an obligation that is accompanied with divine 
authority. Its whole force is employed in leading 
the whole individual into a faithful pursuit of the 
ideals of his whole mental life. This "ought," 
coming with divine authority, marks his relation to 
God. His attitude toward this imperative is the 
attitude toward God. While it carries with it its 
ideals, and demands their pursuit with an uncondi- 
tional obedience, it carries with it its own reward. 
Herein lies the possibilty of the highest rewards 
and the acutest punishment known to man. 

The cosmic order, as we have learned to believe, 
is mechanical, but it is a mechanism that has its 
origin in free intelligence ; and that free intelligence 
is God. Every law and every fragment of the order 
are the expression of His will. The order is perceiv- 
ed by the reason, for the plan upon which the soul 
is built indicates its natural and necessary action. 
His moral nature carries with it the element of feel- 



2IO RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

ing, which makes obedience to its commands valu- 
able to the individual life. When it finds an action, 
but much more when it finds a life in accord with 
its ideals, and on account of the fact that it has 
itself by virtue of its own volition determined itself 
thus, it has the enjoyable feeling of self- approval, 
the consciousness of inner agreement with the will 
of God. The soul is compelled by virtue of its own 
nature to value this relation; and this felt value is 
the inner experience which makes up the worth of 
life. 



THE CONDITION OF BLESSEDNESS. 



Perfect adjustment on the part of the organism 
to its environment brings to it the guarantee of its 
own safety and well-being. Plant the roots of the 
plant into the fertile soil, and moisten them proper- 
ly, and give them air heavily charged with carbonic 
acid, and the plant will grow and the purpose of 
the plant, contained prophetically in the ideal of its 
life, will be realized. Sever the roots from the soil, 
and put it in an atmosphere robbed of its carbonic 
acid, and the plant will cease to grow. Take a fish 
from the water, to which a fish by nature is adapted, 
and the life of the fish is threatened and his feel- 
ings, if it is proper to speak of feeling in a fish, are 
sadly disturbed. The environment of the fish is an 
essential of his well-being; and the proper adjust- 
ment of the fish to this environment is the condition 
of this well-being. With the soul it is no less a 
necessity. Its environment is present to it in the 
form of a world of relations, in which there is 
opportunity for a world of actions. "Nature is an 
intelligent thinking thing. ' ' There is not an ele- 

211 



212 REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

ment but contains in it thought elements, and for 
that reason nature is the environment for the soul. 
But the soul is essentially reason. It is not so 
much interested in a mass of particular facts. Its 
idea of development does not consist in a complica- 
tion of particulars, but in the detection of those 
principles which join individual facts into organic 
unity. It finds its satisfaction in those principles. 
Its environments are not limited by the contents of 
its memory, but extend into the infinity of being 
itself. 

Man's soul life is built upon a certain plan. The 
lines of that plan run along the line of its impulses; 
and the goal of its impulses are its ideals. And 
those ideals are co-operative in the production of 
the conception of God. These ideals are avenues 
leading to God, they are not means for the exhaus- 
tion of the idea. 

The rational impulses are a continual spur to 
realize the self in accord with its most perfect ideals; 
and, as we have seen, these ideals are the roots of 
our conception of God. 

God consequently is the soul's perfect self; the 
ideal of all development, the goal of human prog- 
ress. When man looks at the ideal, it becomes a 
force in the transformation of his character; but 



THE CONDITION OF BI<ESSEDNKSS. 213 

when he looks at his own imperfect self, from the 
standpoint of his ideal, he is led to exclaim, "O 
sinful man that I am." The ideal of a perfect life 
is far ahead of anything that man at anytime is able 
to realize. When he looks at it and thinks of his 
failure to reach it, he sinks into despair. When he 
remembers that it was missed by a voluntary act of 
his own, he becomes conscious of his sinfulness and 
has the feeling of unworthiness and of deserved 
damnation. 

Blessedness is the ideal of his sensible nature. 
Improvement of conditions for greater joy and hap- 
piness is the end of toil and effort. Wealth must 
have its value, if it has any at all, in its ability to 
gratify the demands of the body, and to make its 
conditions more tolerable. It is the same with 
position and pleasure. These, however, are not 
the only avenues of joy. The ideals form the 
environment of man's rational nature. His happi- 
ness consists in being at peace with them. When 
it is cold he must adjust himself to this fact in such 
a manner that the difference between his condition 
and his ideal may be minimized. He may be able 
to do so naturally ; or he may be compelled to do it 
artificially. He may be able to resist the forces of 
nature playing about him by taking these substances 



214 REUGION A RATION AI, DEMAND. 

and forces into himself, in the form of nourishment, 
to build up his physical system. Physical comfort 
consists in being able to cope with these forces of 
nature, with the assurance of victory. When the 
want of adjustment appears there is suffering; and 
ultimately the forces of nature gain the ascendency 
and the dissolution of the body is the result. When 
the adjustment is complete, the forces of nature 
serve to preserve the welfare of the body. When 
the adjustment fails, the body is put into misery; 
and death is the final outcome. 

Man's spiritual, no less than his natural life, 
requires adjustment to its environment. Nature 
itself provides well-being, when the adjustment is 
made. When the roots of the plant sink into the 
soil, and the leaves are bathed with carbonic acid, 
in the proper temperature, the plant will grow. 
The fish in water will find nourishment for his 
body. And in this arrangement of nature, the well- 
being of the organism is guaranteed. 

Man's rational nature finds its enjoyment and 
peace in conformity to its ideals. Looked at from 
the standpoint of actual attainment, he becomes 
conscious of his own un worthiness; and when he 
recognizes his own faults, voluntarily made, he has 



THE CONDITION OF BLESSEDNESS. 215 

the consciousness of self-condemnation. Though 
there is a natural chasm between the finite and the 
Infinite, yet there may be assurance of unity in the 
fact that the soul in its natural expansion is on the 
way toward the realization of its ideal in the In- 
finite. There is perfect peace to the individual, 
when the chasm is not of his own making. A will- 
ful deviation from the direction of the realization of 
the ideals brings the consciousness of guilt and of 
utter unworthiness. The effect of this experience 
was a destruction of faith in the possiblity of the 
necessary unity with God. His ideals, as we saw, 
are his glimpses of God. He finds himself standing 
before them as they are unrealized, and dare not 
expect that they can be realized. This conscious- 
ness wrecks his inner hope. Having no higher 
hope, he finds himself set about with allurements, 
which, for that reason, he is unable to resist; before 
him moves the idea of God, the goal of his being. 
In a different direction move the ideals of his imme- 
diate pleasure, coupled with the unchecked rebuke, 
that he has failed to pursue the ideals of his rational 
nature. He is conscious of the fact that exercise has 
developed a stronger love for immediate pleasure, 
and less taste and desire for rational ends. The re- 
sult of this course is a growing feeling of hopeless- 



2l6 REUGION A RATION AI, DEMAND. 

ness, that the true rational, which is the religious 
end of life, will ever be gained. 

The first demand for the removal of this feeling 
of discontent and hopelessness is the assurance that 
the chasm can be bridged. This makes room for 
special revelation. Sin was not wrought into man's 
rational nature; and, for that reason, we cannot 
look there for the remedy for its removal. The 
need of the special provision, however, must be 
recognized by reason, and reason must ultimately 
be assured of its sufficiency. If the special provision 
made is adequate to remove this feeling of discon- 
tent, engendered by the consciousness of this wide 
separation of the two, then it has gained the end 
for which it was intended. It is not my purpose, 
in this connection, to treat the evidences for the 
Christian faith, or to speak about the sufficiency of 
the plan of salvation. It is sufficient, and in per- 
fect accord with this work to point out that reason 
demanded even this special provision. 

Hopelessness kills because the ideals are out of 
reach. The perfection of the intellectual and moral 
natures is impossible because man has fallen out of 
line with them. The effect of a voluntary want of 
conformity is damning. 



THE CONDITION OF BLESSEDNESS. 21 7 

The assurance that the chasm is bridged, and 
that, in spite of man's voluntary fall, he may still 
be restored is quickening. The hold upou God is 
broken. Can that hold be re-established ? Special 
revelation says it can. If it can reason sees the 
possibility of blessedness. This condition is met 
by the establishment of faith in the fact that the 
ends toward which rational impulses impell can still 
be gained, despite the consciousness of present im- 
perfections. The means for man's restoration must 
therefore furnish an unshakable foundation for his 
faith; and this faith is the condition of his blessed- 
ness. Perfect blessedness puts the ideal not into 
the future; for that would leave a present discon- 
tent. Blessedness cannot exist when the individual 
is not what he desires to be. If, on the contrary, 
he was everything in toto what he desired to be, then 
would there be no possibility of new experience, 
and that again would interfere with blessedness. 
Unattainarility brings despair, and thus prevents 
the realization of blessedness; and perfect attain- 
ment of the ideal would mean stagnation, and that 
again would deny the possibility of blessedness. 
What then is the course that will assure it ? It is 
a life of faith. This faith in order to be effectual 
must recognize its oneness with God. That which 



218 R3UGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

the soul aims to be, that it must be perfectly confi- 
dent of becoming. 

In that faith he has practical oneness with God. 
In this oneness is the condition of blessedness. 
The soul must be assured that its rational ideals are 
attainable, but attainable not alone, for that would 
still be a state of continual dissatisfaction: what it 
needs, in the presence of a goal infinitely distant, is 
a goal already attained. Our conceptions of God 
increase with our constantly growing experience; 
our conception of God's perfectness continually 
moves ahead of us: and our blessedness demands a 
constant satisfaction of this demand for oneness, 
which consists in unbroken fidelity to the ever 
advancing ideal. All of God, as perfectly as He is 
conceived at any moment, is the possession of gen- 
uine faith. 

The plant does not find the condition of its 
growth in itself; it is only as it sends its roots away 
from itself into the soil, and its leaves away from 
itself into the air, that it finds stimulus and mate- 
rial for development. For the soul to look upon 
itself means to feed upon imperfections. Looking 
upon imperfections, while a perfect ideal hovers be- 
fore, is the source of misery and pain. Faith, in 
order to put the individual into a state of blessed- 



THE CONDITION OF BLESSEDNESS. 219 

ness, must be dynamic. A formal faith, if there is 
such a thing, is worthless. A formal faith adopts 
certain forms and ceremonies as the essentials of 
religion, and holds them fast. It aims to meet the 
requirements of certain institutions, and therewith 
is content. It expects for formal service rendered 
a formal reward, Such a faith lays hold upon 
husks and feasts upon them. The true environ- 
ments of the soul are eternal realities. The whole 
nature of God as self-revealed to it is its own com- 
plete self; and it is the purpose of an effective faith 
to bring these realities into an active relation to the 
soul itself. It misses its aim, if it is active only at 
certain intervals. It must constantly hold firmly 
to the soul's self these eternal realities, that they, 
by their activity upon it, may transform it into 
similarity with its most perfect ideals. 

In such a faith the two requirements of blessed- 
ness are met. Perfect peace in an established one- 
ness with God; secondly, the everpresent, and ever- 
active, power of the Divine Spirit transforming the 
soul, more and more, into the likeness of absolute 
perfection. 

For faith God is a present possession of the soul. 
Such a faith may not result in the transformation 
of nature to suit the individual whim; the order of 



220 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

nature does not need transforming into our ideal. 
It is not God that neerls to be transformed into one- 
ness with the soul; it is 1he soul that needs to be 
transformed into oneness with God. 

Pra}^er is the formalization of this faith. Its 
effectiveness does not consist in the ring and flow of 
words. Its purpose is not to bring the Absolute 
into obedience to us, but to bring us into obedience 
to Him. The self must be transformed and trans- 
figured; and this is done not by the ring of formal 
statements, but by the action of power. The Divine 
Spirit, embodying in himself all unchangable prin- 
ciples and realities, is the power. Faith is the 
dynamic element in prayer, because it puts the indi- 
vidual self into vital relation to this Spirit; and the 
Spirit works out the transfiguration. "According 
to thy faith be it unto thee." 



THE WAY OF DEATH. 



To deny misery is to be untrue to consciousness. 
Pain and pleasure are two sides of human experi- 
ence. It is said that pleasure is the result when 
the environment, or some part of it, works together 
harmoniously with the individual for his perpetua- 
tion and well-being. 

Pain is a warning that a certain connection with 
a certain part of the environment should be avoided; 
or it indicates that certain demands are not met. It 
is now generally agreed that feeling is not derived 
from cognition; and that no intellect, no matter how 
strong, could ever arrive at feeling without feeling 
itself; but feeling is indissolubly connected with 
cognition and with will. Ideas awaken feelings, 
and feelings stimulate will. In fact, no one of these 
faculties act without the others acting with it. 
Relations are intellectually grasped and measured 
in thought ; but the relations have a value for the 
feelings themselves. 

I want to introduce this discussion with an illu- 
stration, or two. Pluck a plant from its surroundings 
221 



222 REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

and it fails to receive the proper nourishment and 
dies. The environment is not thereby changed, nor 
is a single element of its provision taken from it; 
but the plant's relation to the environment is 
changed; and the changed relation proves fatal to 
the plant. This is illustrative of the principle that 
there is a certain right relation in which things 
stand to each other, in the order of nature; and 
that this right relation guarantees the prosperity of 
the individual thing. In a perfect mechanism every 
part must work in harmony with every other part. 

This fact insures the unity of the mechanism 
and the value of the part. In the organism of the 
Universe, the value of the individual part is deter- 
mined by its relation to the whole. The environ- 
ments of the soul are its ideals. These ideals may 
be true, or they may be false. Its rational impulses 
are its true ideals; and they lead along different 
avenues to God, as He is revealed in the Universe 
of phenomenal being and in the soul. 

In a mere mechanism perfect adaptation would 
be the necessary result; because the mechanism as 
a whole determines the relation of every part. In 
a system having in it free moral agency, it is vastly 
different. In such a system the adaptation is not 
made mechanically, but voluntarily. The result of 



THE WAY OF DEATH. 223 

a wrong relation established, voluntarily is as grave 
as one forcible established by other agencies; while, 
in addition to all this, the voluntary agent has his 
own choice to regret. He has not only the damn- 
ing result of a wrong relationship, but the torturing 
consciousness that he himself is the responsible 
agent in his own misfortune. 

The principles of the soul are not forces outside 
of it coercing it, but are habits of the soul itself. 
It is characteristic of its whole life that action along 
certain lines makes action along those lines more 
easy; and they become the avenues along which 
the soul discharges its energy most readily. The 
more easy action becomes still more easy through 
continued action; until it becomes an established 
attribute. The habitual adaptation becomes an 
established relation. The character now has become 
confirmed; and the sensibility puts its own value 
upon the relation established. 

The individual organ has no independent life of 
its own. It shares the life of the entire organism. 
Its own life depends upon the life of the whole. 
Severed from the whole it itself soon ceases to live. 
The whole phenomenal universe is an organism. 
God, its life is expressed in every part of it. Thfc 
truth must be held with a certain reserve; for the 



224 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

life of a finite organism appropriates material lying 
outside of itself, and makes it contribute to its own 
strength. The Universe as organism has no foreign 
substance, it all flows from the life itself. Man as 
an individual organ or member shares the life of the 
whole . With a proper relation" to the whole pre- 
served man's prosperity is a necessity, and with his 
prosperity comes the feeling of blessedness. Man 
is then at peace with the rational impulses of his 
being and is at rest. 

But when the indh idual fights against the im- 
pulses of his being, and instead of living for rational 
ends, he lives simply for side issues, he severs him- 
self from the great organism of which he is a part; 
and the result is death. The attitude taken ex- 
pressed in terms of soul life is something like this : 
The individual has voluntarily consented to be un- 
true to the impulses of his own rational nature. 
His aim is no longer for the universal, it is for the 
particular. He is not searching for God; but is 
content with finding elements for material joy. 
Instead of living a theocentric life, his interest is 
all centered in himself. His aim is not to be trans- 
figured into the highest ideals of beauty and 
worth; but all else must be tortured into service 
of self. 



THE WAY OF DKATH. 225 

Such a course is self-deception. Truth is not 
individual; it is eternal. The highest ambition of 
man ought not to be to distort everything into simi- 
larity with a perverted self, but to put the self into 
harmony with the whole order of nature, as far as 
it is real. It would be out of line with all analogy 
to suppose that the whole organism would change 
in order to meet the perverted wants of a single 
organ. It is out of line with all psychological facts 
to think that the individual can force his opinion 
upon the universe and make it binding. Man learns 
that his thoughts are true only when they are repro- 
ductions of thought not his own. When he lives 
the life of individual thought he loses tbe life of the 
universal. The thought of the individual lives, as 
it shares the life of the universal. Eternal truth 
puts to shame individual opinion, not conforming to 
truth. False ideals are blasted in the presence of 
real ones. And experience will always accord with 
fact. 

Truth is the expression of the will of God. A 
right life is a life in perfect obedience to this 
supreme will. A part of an organism refusing to 
be animated by the life of the whole is soon treated 
by that whole as a foreign element; and the whole 
system wars against it for its banishment. The 



226 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

soul putting itself into antagonism to its highest 
impulses never is freed from these highest impulses, 
nor from its ideals. They always hover before it as 
the goal of its existence. The irrational have before 
them the goal of rational life ; the immoral have 
before them the goal of morality; and the great 
chasm between their real being and what they 
ought to have become, now fixed by permanent 
choice, causes an inner conflict and is destructive of 
peace and blessedness. The result of such a life is 
a self at variance with itself. To this fact another 
sad one is added. The self is not only in discord 
with itself; but is also conscious of the fact that its 
condition is not a result of a mechanical necessity, 
but is the natural outcome of its own choice. It 
throws the burden of its own condition upon itself. 
This feeling of self-condemnation is the most damn- 
ing feeling the indi\ idual can entertain. 

The individual has developed his individualism 
at the expense of harmony with the universal 
life. His individualism has become a form of 
insanity in which he has become disjointed with 
his surroundings and his surroundings with him. 
He has entered into the boldest antagonism to its 
ideals and his ideals continually hover before him to 
show him the folly of his antagonism. The ideals 



THE WAY OF DEATH. 227 

will never surrender their claims and the poor 
antagonizing wretch must give himself up a con- 
quered victim. He has put himself in as far as he 
is in antagonism to his ideals, also in antagonism to 
his God; and instead of having the peaceful influ- 
ence of his recognized presence, he feels the sense 
of an unbroken dread. He has the sad remember- 
ance that it was an abuse of the gift denied the 
most stupendous phenomena of nature, but given 
him, the freedom of his will, that has put him into 
such dissonance with nature and with nature's God. 
That faculty has enabled him to transform the 
choicest blessings into the bitterest gall, and, 
through the confirmation of character, has thrown 
himself into irreparable confusion. 



CONCLUSION, 



No reader will construe this as being an attempt 
to find a substitute for revelation. It does not aim 
to displace revelation but to point out its necessity, 
by appealing to human nature. It reveals a rational 
basis for religion. 

Religion is the key-stone of the whole logical, 
or rational edifice; if it fail, the whole structure 
must fall. Man's rational nature drives him to the 
formation of a conception of God. This conception 
is a necessary result of a normal mental constitu- 
tion. Not only by his theoretical reason is he im- 
pelled to the conception of God ; but his practical 
reason with a still stronger and more authoritative 
impulse impels him to stand in certain relation to 
this Being, to the conceptions of which he is so 
forcibly driven. 

The eye stands in relation to the motions of 
ether, and we call that relation sight. The ear 
stands in relation to the motion of the air, and we 
call that sound. With the termination of the nerves 
man stands in relation to objects offering resistance 

228 



CONCLUSION. 229 

and we call that touch. And with his rational 
nature he stands in relation to the fundamental 
ground of all reality, and we call that religion. 

Some one may say that the method of this work 
is not cogent. I would simply reply that it is 
scientific; and if it fails, science must fail with it. 
God is a supersensible reality; but a reality none 
the less for that reason. What reason demands for 
the proper organization of knowledge must be 
accepted as real. The idea of space is not unreal 
because it is supersensible. The biologist analyses a 
cell and finds its chemical constituents; in his 
laboratory he combines the same elements in the 
same proportion ; he sees what natural protoplasm 
will do, what his artificial protoplasm will not do, 
that is grow. Reason demands the assumption of 
a something in the natural protoplasm which is not 
present in the artificial; and that something is just 
as real as though it were sensible. 

In the orbit of Uranus, some anomalous move- 
ments were discovered. They were anomalous be- 
cause nothing was known to account for them. 
Mathematicians, after long and involved computa- 
tions, pointed out the necessity of another hugh 
planet to account for the anomalies. They pointed 
out its position. It was accepted as real because 



230 RKUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. 

reason demanded it as the explanation of certain 
phenomena. 

The astronomer improved his telescope and 
pointed it in the direction of the rational demand 
and found Neptune floating in the heavens. What 
reason demands for the proper organization of 
knowledge must be accepted as true, in all science, 
until it is proven false. 



NOV 20 1900 



